Musings From Abroad

US sends 10,000 doses of mpox vaccinations to Nigeria

Published

6 days ago

September 1, 2024

Nigeria has received 10,000 doses of the mpox vaccine from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This is the first batch of the vaccine to get to the country, which has already reported 40 cases but no deaths.

The head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Muyi Aina, said that the gift was a “critical step” for Nigeria.

“We are aware that the vaccine is not exactly in surplus supply. I believe we’re getting 10,000 of the about 200,000 doses that are available globally,” Aina said in a statement

According to a statement from USAID, the Nigerian government has chosen to give the vaccines to five states first: Bayelsa, Edo, Cross-River, and Lagos.

The NHPCDA hasn’t said when the shots will be sent out or who will get treatment first.

“We encourage the Government of Nigeria to continue to mobilize domestic resources to secure more vaccines to combat mpox,” U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills said at the handover ceremony of the vaccines to the Nigerian government.

Mpox is a virus that can be passed from person to person through close contact, but it can also be passed from place to person through things and surfaces that a person with mpox has touched.

Related Topics:Featured mpox vaccinations Nigeria United States

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Musings From Abroad

UN indicts warring parties in Sudan, calls for peacekeepers

Published

18 hours ago

September 6, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A United Nations-mandated panel stated on Friday that both sides in Sudan’s civil war had engaged in acts that may qualify as war crimes, and proposed that to protect civilians, international powers must expand the arms embargo and send in peacekeepers.

The report claimed to be based on 182 interviews with survivors, families, and witnesses. It detailed the rape, attacks, use of torture, and arbitrary arrests committed by Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against civilians.

“The gravity of our findings and failure of the warring parties to protect civilians underscores the need for urgent and immediate intervention,” the U.N. fact-finding mission’s chair, Mohamed Chande Othman, told reporters.

Both parties have denied previous allegations by rights organisations and the United States and accused one another of abusing power. Neither stated in reaction to the allegations or answered enquiries for comment on Friday right away.

Othman and the other two mission members demanded the immediate deployment of an independent force.

“We cannot continue to have people dying before our eyes and do nothing about it,” mission member Mona Rishmawi said. A U.N.-mandated peacekeeping force was a possibility, she added.

The mission advocated for the extension of an arms embargo now in place by the United Nations, which only covers the western part of Darfur and the thousands of documented ethnic killings there. Fourteen of the eighteen states in the country have been affected by the conflict that began in Khartoum in April of last year.

According to the mission, there were also good reasons to suspect that the RSF and its affiliated militias had perpetrated other war crimes, including kidnapping women forcing them into prostitution and recruiting minors as fighters.

Unnamed support groups had received allegations of over 400 rapes in the first year of the war, but mission member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo said the actual number was likely considerably higher.

Musings From Abroad

Chinese investments in Africa mutually beneficial, South Africa’s Ramaphosa insists

Published

2 days ago

September 5, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, said Thursday that Chinese investments in Africa were mutually beneficial and not a “debt trap” for the continent.

Ramaphosa stated this on the sidelines of a China-Africa meeting in Beijing, with delegations from over 50 African states.

“I don’t necessarily buy the notion that when China (invests), it is with the intention of, in the end, ensuring that those countries end up in a debt trap or a debt crisis,” Ramaphosa said when asked by reporters about China’s pledge at the summit of $51 billion in new funding for Africa.

China pledged to launch three times more infrastructure projects in resource-rich Africa, a region of significant geopolitical conflict between China, Europe, and the US, and to provide financial support over three years.

Ramaphosa also said, without providing details, that South Africa and China have secured an energy security pact. He claimed South Africa could learn energy sector reform from China.

“They already have done exactly what we are seeking to do. So there are lessons for us to learn from China and how to do it,” he said.

Power outages have slowed economic progress in South Africa in recent years. The country plans to pursue China’s largest electric vehicle producers, Ramaphosa added.

“We had good exchanges with BYD, which has shown a great interest to come and invest in South Africa,” he said.

Africa and China have strengthened commercial and political ties in recent decades. China is a major trading partner and lender. Additionally, Chinese companies invested heavily in Africa, making it a major investor in the continent.