COVID-19 South Africa
Innovative Tech Critical in Vaccinating South Africa’s Rural and Remote Areas
/* custom css */ .tdi_4_9b2.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_4_9b2.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } As South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination programme ramps up, with a target to vaccinate 41-million people by the end of March next year, health NGO Right to Care is deploying teams to vaccinate South Africans living in hard-to-reach places in remote parts of the country. Dr Ntombi Sigwebela, chief of party for vaccinations at health NGO Right to Care, says that “No-one should be left out of the vaccine programme, including people living in far-flung areas. There is an urgency to vaccinate as variants may emerge and spread. We need to achieve herd or population immunity to break the chain of transmission as quickly as possible.” Right to Care is supporting the National Department of...
African Airline Industry Lost $55 Billion from COVID-19 Lockdowns
Sourced from The African Report. Africa’s travel and tourism industry have lost $55 billion due to the closure of borders across the continent in attempts to stave off the spread of the novel coronavirus. This is according to the African Union, who says that on the continent where safaris are a powerful overseas tourism market, the sector has been crushed by hard lockdowns that sealed air, land and sea borders. “The impact is really severe,” says Amani Abou-Zeid, Commissioner for the African Union during a virtual briefing organised by the World Economic Forum and the WHO on Thursday. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_fbb.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_fbb.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “We are talking here about $55 billion lost within three months in a year when we were supposed ...
South Africa’s GDP Falls by 2% During First Quarter of 2020
Sourced from Finance Monthly. According to Statistics South Africa, the country’s economy decreased by 2.0% in the first quarter of 2020. Extending the technical recession the country found itself in in the last quarter of 2019. Stats SA’s latest quarterly GDP figures come only a week after SA’s finance minister Tito Mboweni tabled a supplementary budget in part of the country’s response against the COVID-19 pandemic. South Africa is the worst affected country in the continent. Treasury now expects the country’s GDP to contract by a record 7.2% by the end of the year, while tax revenues are expected to fall over R300 billion shorter then what was estimated in February’s budget. Fin24 reports that the global economy is likewise looking dour. The UK is reporting a 2.2% contraction between Ja...
Scam Attempts on Gumtree Have Surged During South Africa’s Lockdown
British classifieds platform popular with South Africans, Gumtree has seen an increase in scams during the country’s lockdown with criminals and fraudsters benefiting from scamming people over a distance. Estelle Nagel of Gumtree says that “The pandemic has seen more South Africans sell their items in an attempt to raise additional cash, and as those listings increase, so do scam attempts.” “With lockdown, buyers and sellers are inclined to transact online only rather than face to face or without viewing an item in person and using electronic payment methods rather than cash. This does lead to more instances of fraud,” she continues. With more and more South Africans desperately searching for cash during these tough times, Nagel says, they may be less risk-averse than normal and more likel...
MultiChoice Joins the UN’s Campaign Against COVID-19 Misinformation
Sourced from Tech Central. The MultiChoice Group has announced its latest initiative in the fight against COVID-19. As part of its ongoing efforts to raise awareness through information, the Group has come on board as an official supporter of the United Nations’ global COVID-19 awareness campaign: Pause which launched globally on 30 June 2020. The aim of the Pause campaign is to highlight the dangers of sharing false information related to COVID-19. The campaign asks everyone to “pause, think and take care” before sharing information which could be inaccurate or misinformed and may have harmful effects. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_8ec.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_8ec.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “We are in a moment of global reckoning as COVID-19 and its social and econom...
MTN Launches 5G Network – Everything You Need to Know
Image sourced from Pinterest. MTN South Africa has launched its commercial 5G network, providing access to 100 sites across the country. “Today, from MTN’s birthplace of South Africa, we are stepping up our digital revolution with the next generation of telecommunication technology, demonstrating to all South Africans that 5G is no longer just an idea. It is here, it works and it has the capacity to bring about exponential improvements to our economy, and to the lives of the people we serve,” says MTN SA CEO Godfrey Motsa during the company’s live-streamed launch event. The network today covers specific parts of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, Durban and other smaller towns. “Our 5G strategy has been years in the making and we are confident that we have built a stron...
Sasol to Start Cutting Jobs in August Amid Global Oil Price Slump
Sourced from BizNews. Sasol is set to begin employee dismissals from mid-August in efforts to cut costs in a new strategy aimed at boosting its balances. This comes after the company was battered by the general decline in oil prices as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. According to Fin24, in a letter to its employees dated 18 June the company says it was under considerable financial pressure and that unless stringent and emergency actions are taken, it would not survive the year. The massive petrochemical firm, employer of 31,000 people around the world, continues to estimate that its financial position will remain under “severe pressure” due to the depressed prices on oil. Based in Johannesburg, Sasol says that its “…financial position continues to be under severe pressure, esp...
Unique Health Platform Could Benefit 800 Million Mobile Subscribers in Africa
Sourced from Redbubble and iStock. “With this platform, we have the possibility of reaching between 600 million and 800 million mobile subscribers in Africa,” says Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), during the virtual launch of the Africa Communication and Information Platform for Health and Economic Action (ACIP) on 23 June 2020. ACIP is a mobile-based tool for two-way information and communication between citizens and governments. It furnishes national and regional COVID task forces with user-generated survey data and actionable health and economic insights that will enable authorities to better analyze pandemic-related problems and implement appropriate responses. Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC says the platform offers a “unique opp...
South Africa Begins First COVID-19 Vaccine Trial
Sourced from Getty Images The University of Witswatersrand has announced that South Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine trial is set to begin, with participants to be enrolled by the end of the week. “This is a landmark moment for South Africa and Africa at this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we enter winter in South Africa and pressure increases on public hospitals, now more than ever we need a vaccine to prevent infection by COVID-19,” Professor of Vaccinology at Wits University and Director of the South Africa Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, Shabir Madhi, says in a virtual briefing. This new trial aims to find a vaccine that will prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection, which is the virus that causes COVID-19. “We began screening participants for ...
Online Marketplace for Medical Supplies Launches to Aid Africa-wide COVID-19 Response
Sourced from eNCA. An online marketplace, Africa Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP), has been launched to provide the purchase, volume aggregation, quota management, payment facilitation as well as logistics & transportation of COVID-19-related medical equipment across the African continent. According to Tech Cabal, the new platform provides a reliable database of global manufacturers and logistics service providers for diagnostic kits, personal protective equipment (PPE), devices like ventilators and patient monitors as well as a range of disinfectants. All medical equipment featured on the platform are strictly those that have been approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) as well as other approval ...
SA Startup Making Waves with New COVID-19 Tracing Tech
Sourced from Forbes. A South African startup has launched a cheap approach to contact tracing in efforts to help with coronavirus measures. Contact tracing is a method of tracking used in countries like the United Kingdom, Singapore and South Korea to aid in containing SARS-CoV-2 infections. The tracing is able to track exactly who was in contact with an infectious person and thus limit further contact. South Korea, one of the only countries on Earth that have been able to bring a massive COVID-19 outbreak rapidly under control used contact tracing heavily. Currently, the country has just over a thousand cases and is no longer forcing stay-at-home lockdowns and most businesses are open. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_77d.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_77d.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto...
How to Fight COVID-19 in Africa’s Informal Settlements
Sourced from eNCA. The COVID-19 pandemic has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the world’s richest cities but poses an even greater threat to cities in the developing world. There are now more than 150,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa, in all 54 countries, with South Africa and Egypt the worst affected. One of the most pressing concerns for Africa is that over half the population (excluding in North Africa) live in overcrowded informal settlements. In these areas where several people have to share one badly ventilated room, diseases such as COVID-19 spread fast and it is impossible to practice physical distancing whether in homes or outside. Other preventative measures are equally challenging. Only a third of households in Africa have access to basic handwashing facili...
