Category: Medical

Pregnancy puts women at higher risk of severe medical complications or death from COVID-19, according to a new study of more than 1,300 women in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers argue that vaccinating pregnant women against the coronavirus should be made a priority across the region, where most countries do not yet recommend vaccination during pregnancy.

Multiple studies have already shown that COVID-19 is more dangerous to pregnant women than to those who are not pregnant. But most of the women in these studies lived in Europe, North America or Asia. Until now, little data was available from Africa.

“Africa is not Europe, is not the U.S.A.,” said Jean Nachega, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and lead author of the new study. “We should not just rely on data coming from the U.S., Europe or China to try to understand COVID on the continent.”

Populations in Africa are typically younger than those in Europe, North America and East Asia. But certain infectious diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis (TB), as well as noninfectious diseases such as sickle cell anemia, are more common there. Those conditions can make it harder for the body to fight off infections.

In the study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Nachega and his colleagues from the AFREhealth research network analyzed health records from 1,315 women treated at hospitals in six countries in sub-Saharan Africa between March 2020 and March 2021. Roughly a third were pregnant and had tested positive for the coronavirus. Another third were pregnant and had tested negative, and the other third were not pregnant and had tested positive. The researchers tested how pregnancy, infection with the coronavirus, and conditions such as HIV, TB, malaria and sickle cell anemia affected a woman’s likelihood of severe disease or death.

The findings were grim. Pregnant women who were hospitalized in sub-Saharan Africa were five times more likely to die in the hospital if they tested positive for the coronavirus. And being pregnant doubled the odds that a woman admitted to a hospital with COVID-19 would die.

“We had it in both ways: pregnancy impacted COVID, and COVID impacted pregnant women,” said Nachega.

Pregnant women with COVID-19 were also at higher risk of serious complications requiring intensive care. It wasn’t possible to tell whether pregnancy made the combination of COVID-19 and TB or HIV riskier, but women with HIV, TB, malaria or sickle cell who had the coronavirus were more likely to get seriously ill.

“It’s very good that the study was conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is very reassuring that the findings are consistent with the results of other studies,” said Ana Langer, a physician specializing in reproductive health and head of the Women and Health initiative at Harvard University.

Because the study considered only hospitalized women, it wasn’t possible to tell if pregnancy makes women more likely to get infected with the coronavirus or if they get sick from it in the first place. Using data collected in the past can also cause problems with the analysis, which the researchers used statistical tools to correct. But “this was the best study they could do with the availability of funding and the other circumstances,” Langer said.

Nachega hopes that his findings will convince policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa to recommend vaccination for pregnant women and women who could become pregnant.

“The bottom line is that pregnant women need to get vaccinated,” he said. “If not then, before even she gets pregnant. The most important implication of this study is to advocate for COVID vaccination in women of childbearing age.”

Multiple studies have shown that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective during pregnancy, and 110 countries recommend COVID-19 vaccination for some or all pregnant women. However, only 13 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries currently do so. Lack of government support stymies efforts to make the vaccine more accessible to pregnant women and is complicated by high rates of vaccine hesitancy in sub-Saharan Africa, where only about 19% of women intend to get the vaccine.

“Women and their families are worried about their safety, they think that the vaccine could harm them, or their fetuses and babies, and it has been extensively demonstrated that that’s not the case,” said Langer. “The vaccine is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.”

Source: Voice of America

NAIROBI, More than one million children in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi have received one or extra doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine as efforts to eradicate the disease in the continent gathers steam, the World Health Organization (WHO) said ahead of World Malaria Day to be marked on April 25.

WHO in a statement issued in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, said the malaria vaccine since its launch in 2019 has significantly reduced severe ailment and death among children in the three African countries.

The first ever malaria vaccine called RTS, S/AS01(RTS, S) is expected to save the lives of an additional 40,000 to 80,000 African children annually, says WHO.

So far, more than 155 million U.S. dollars have been secured from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to facilitate the introduction, procurement and delivery of the malaria vaccine to endemic countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the WHO.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said that development of a safe and efficacious vaccine marked a milestone in efforts to eliminate the vector-borne disease in the continent.

“This vaccine is not just a scientific breakthrough; it is life-changing for families across Africa. It demonstrates the power of science and innovation for health,” said Ghebreyesus.

He stressed there was an urgency to develop more sophisticated preventive tools in order to revitalize the war on malaria in Africa that accounts for more than 94 percent of the global malaria burden.

Source: Nam News Network

Without a single dollar of the $5 billion it requested for its global COVID-19 response approved, the Biden administration’s key program to help vaccinate the world is in danger of grinding to a halt.

Even as the administration marked World Health Day on Thursday with a commitment to build a safer, healthier and more equitable future around the globe, without additional funding from Congress, by September the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will no longer be able to finance Global Vax. The U.S. launched the international initiative in December to deliver shots in arms in 11 countries: Angola, Ivory Coast, Eswatini, Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

“Without additional funding to support getting shots into arms, USAID will have to curtail our growing efforts to turn vaccines into vaccinations — just as countries are finally gaining access to the vaccine supplies needed to protect their citizens,” a USAID spokesperson told VOA. USAID had initially requested $19 billion for its global vaccination initiatives.

USAID had planned to expand Global Vax to 20 additional countries, but those plans are now on hold.

Without additional funding, the U.S. will also be unable to provide oxygen and other lifesaving supplies around the world, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters earlier this week.

“And our global genomic sequencing capabilities will fall off and undermine our ability to detect any emerging variants around the world,” Zients added.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate agreed to provide $10 billion in supplemental funding for COVID-19 response domestically but did not approve the $5 billion requested by the White House for its global pandemic efforts.

With Senate Republicans insisting that any new COVID-19 spending be paid for with unspent funds from the nearly $6 trillion in COVID-19 legislation that had already been passed, Senate Democrats dropped the international funding request to get the domestic package approved first.

“While we were unable to reach an agreement on international aid in this new agreement, many Democrats and Republicans are committed to pursuing a second supplemental later this spring,” Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who had been leading negotiations with Schumer on the $10 billion COVID-19 domestic response package, said he is willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global pandemic efforts in the weeks ahead.

Airports to arms

Globally, the issue now is not the lack of vaccine doses but the ability of getting them “from airports to arms,” said Krishna Udayakumar, who leads a Duke University team that tracks global vaccine production, distribution and donation.

“How do we make sure that the trained vaccinators are there, the data system, the cold chain, that’s where a lot more money is needed,” Udayakumar told VOA.

The administration has already purchased all of the 1.2 billion doses of vaccines it has pledged to donate around the world. However, without the additional funding, some of them are in danger of expiring in warehouses in the U.S., said global health advocate Tom Hart.

Hart, president of the ONE Campaign, an advocacy organization that fights preventable diseases, said that in his decadeslong career in global health, he has never seen the U.S. reneging on its commitment.

“In the 20 years I’ve been doing this, every time we have pledged to deliver something, the United States has been able to keep that pledge, and it has created enormous goodwill around the world,” Hart told VOA.

But now, U.S. credibility is on the line. “We’ve said with great fanfare that we have these incredibly effective doses. And they are sitting here in America, ready to go to those who need them, and we can’t get them to them,” he said.

The White House said it will continue to work with lawmakers to push for additional international funding.

“We’re not quite there yet,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked by VOA about the fate of those undelivered doses. “And our hope is that we will be able to turn … vaccines into vaccinations.”

Other multilateral programs may have to step in to pick up the U.S. slack, including the COVID Vaccine Delivery Partnership mechanism established earlier this year as the next phase of COVAX, the international vaccine-sharing facility supported by the World Health Organization and health organizations Gavi and CEPI.

“The aim of the partnership is to focus on providing bespoke support for those countries furthest behind in coverage: coordinating efforts around delivery funding, technical assistance, demand planning and political engagement, led by countries themselves,” a Gavi spokesperson told VOA.

The administration would not say whether it is pushing for a separate global pandemic funding package, or one that is attached to potential additional funding for Ukraine and the global food crisis, which could come in weeks or months.

It is also not providing details on when President Joe Biden will host the second global COVID-19 summit, originally scheduled for March. Biden hosted the first summit in September 2021 when he sought to galvanize a robust response from wealthy nations to help vaccinate the world.

Source: Voice Of America

Key Messages

• The peak of the lean season is ongoing, and food stocks from own production are largely depleted among poor households, increasing their reliance on markets for food using income earned from casual agricultural and non-agricultural labor opportunities. Most households are experiencing and will likely continue to experience Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes until the harvest in March/April 2022. Food security outcomes are expected to improve with green foods becoming available in March and the beginning of the main harvest in April, as households consume food from their own production. This will drive Stressed (IPC Phase 2) outcomes.

• Although imported food supplies are available and support normal domestic market supply, food access is limited due to low incomes and high food prices. Market prices are higher than last year and above the five-year average. Maize meal prices in December 2021 were stable compared to prices in November 2021. Poor households are spending a large proportion of their income on food, driving below normal purchasing power.

• Wet conditions during the 2021/22 season are driving favorable production prospects for the 2022 harvest. Heavy rainfall in January resulted in waterlogging and the destruction of crops in several areas of the country. This hampered weeding activities, a main income-earning source for poor households. Rainfall in February was normal to above average. A second consecutive favorable harvest in 2022 is still expected due to the farm inputs subsidy program and generally favorable rainfall. Good crop production and pasture availability are expected to anchor economic growth and improve household food access in 2022.

• Due to the compounding effects of continued COVID-19 restrictions, the domestic economy is still operating at a suboptimal level, resulting in some loss of income among households. COVID-19 containment measures have reduced remittances, driving low-purchasing power among remittance-dependent households, and are also likely to stunt economic growth and sustain high unemployment.

Source: Famine Early Warning System Network

African health authorities are calling for better coordination to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are distributed quickly to all African nations.

Vaccine supplies have surpassed demand for the first time since the pandemic began two years ago. But health officials at a conference in Nigeria said Wednesday that a lack of refrigeration and poor infrastructure were major challenges for vaccine equity.

The African Union’s Vaccine Delivery Alliance organized the conference to highlight hurdles many African countries face delivering COVID-19 vaccines to their citizens.

Tian Johnson, an AU community engagement official, said, “What we see before us through the magnifying glass of COVID-19 are the fruits of decades of deprioritizing health at country levels. The fact remains, as Africans we must be absolutely sure that we leave no one behind.”

About 20 percent of Africa’s 1.2 billion people have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a poor record compared with those of many Western nations, where vaccination rates are at 70 percent or better.

Lack of infrastructure

Many African countries, including Nigeria, lack the infrastructure and cooling systems to store vaccines in large quantities.

Last year, up to 1 million doses of COVID vaccines expired in Nigeria, the highest single number in any country.

Officials said the vaccination gap is made worse by lack of funding, which limits African countries’ ability to properly receive and distribute vaccines.

A February publication by COVAX — the global vaccine program supported by the WHO and Gavi — showed low-income countries requested only 100 million doses of vaccines out of 436 million doses available.

In Nigeria, where only about 6 percent of people are vaccinated, authorities also have been battling widespread vaccine hesitancy, which authorities partly blame for the low inoculation rate.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said at the Vaccine Delivery Alliance conference, “Global solidarity and proactive leadership is the only way we will beat this virus. This high-level summit calls for greater solidarity and for the world to hear Africa’s voice on how we can beat the virus together.”

Buhari said authorities were accelerating vaccinations in Nigeria to save lives and kick-start economic recovery.

Vaccine production

The World Health Organization last week said Nigeria and five other African countries would be the first on the continent to begin local production of COVID-19 vaccines. The WHO said training for vaccine production could begin in a matter of weeks.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, one of the speakers at Wednesday’s conference, said, “WHO and our partners are working day and night to address the bottlenecks that remain in partnership with countries. We are on ground to do whatever it takes to reach country goals, not only on vaccines but for testing and treatment.”

Experts say until Africa is largely vaccinated against the virus, the world will remain unsafe.

Source: Voice of America

The Wall Street Journal Friday, citing sources close to the decision, reported the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week delayed its review of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for under-5-year-olds because initial testing showed its two-dose series was not working well against the omicron variant.

The sources told the Journal early data showed the vaccine to be effective against the delta variant during testing, while that was the dominant strain, but some vaccinated children developed COVID-19 after omicron emerged.

The report quotes the sources as saying so few study subjects, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, developed the disease during testing so far, that the sample size of omicron cases made the vaccine appear less effective in an early statistical analysis.

The Journal sources said FDA officials think the Pfizer-BioNTech shot might wind up providing stronger protection against omicron once more cases emerge, if the bulk of infections are in unvaccinated subjects. So both the FDA and Pfizer agreed it would be better to wait for additional cases, with the extra time allowing the agency to assess the vaccine’s effectiveness as either a two-dose or three-dose regimen.

The FDA was going to make its decision by looking at whether the shot generated immune responses comparable to those seen in older people. The agency was originally scheduled to assess the shot for children 6 months through 4 years of age on February 15.

In Hong Kong

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong Friday, the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, announced elections for its next leader will be postponed for six weeks, as the city grapples with a worsening coronavirus outbreak with thousands of daily infections.

At a news conference, Lam said the vote, scheduled for March 27, would be moved to May 8, because holding the elections sooner could pose “public health risks,” even if a committee of only 1,462 voters were involved. She said the city “is currently facing the most serious pandemic situation since the past two years. The situation is critical.”

Lam also said the city is considering mandatory testing of “everyone in Hong Kong” but added that did not necessarily mean that the city would be put under strict lockdown.

She pointed to cities like Macao, which has tested its entire population twice for the coronavirus.

Health authorities said Thursday that the city’s hospitals were at 90% capacity and that its isolation facilities were full.

In Africa

Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia are the first African countries to receive technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines from the World Health Organization. Two of the vaccines used in the fight against COVID-19 are mRNA vaccines.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the award Friday in Brussels at the European Union-African Union summit.

“No other event like the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that reliance on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting, and dangerous,” Tedros said. “In the mid- to long-term, the best way to address health emergencies and reach universal health coverage is to significantly increase the capacity of all regions to manufacture the health products they need, with equitable access as their primary endpoint.”

More than 80% of the population of the African continent has yet to receive a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. “Much of this inequity has been driven by the fact that globally, vaccine production is concentrated in a few mostly high-income countries,” Tedros said.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that it has received a document that says the Biden administration will “surge” more than $250 million to 11 African countries for coronavirus vaccine campaigns. The countries slated to receive the “intensive support” are Angola, Ivory Coast, Eswatini – formerly known as Swaziland – Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Friday that it has recorded more than 420 million global COVID-19 cases and 5.8 million deaths. The center said 10.3 billion vaccine doses have been administered.

Source: Voice of America