Day: June 19, 2021

BLANTYRE, MALAWI – Malawi’s parliament has withdrawn an abortion bill from debate following opposition to the proposal to liberalize the country’s law, which only allows abortions when the mother’s life is at risk. Anti-abortion groups had urged the National Assembly not to discuss the measure, but activists who want abortion options expanded say they will fight on.

The withdrawal of the measure from consideration comes three months after lawmakers unanimously rejected a motion to debate the Termination of Pregnancy Bill. The bill has been strongly opposed by anti-abortion groups, many citing religious grounds, which urged lawmakers not to debate the issue.

The measure could have allowed abortions in cases of rape and incest.

Mathews Ngwale is chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Health that was tasked with presenting the bill in parliament.

He says the proposal’s withdrawal is a result of stiff resistance from both lawmakers and citizens.

“Last time, when I was about to present the bill, the politicians, the political parties, prevented me from doing that,” Ngwale said. “Now, that got me thinking. And also, having traveled around the country, it also got me thinking. What I have seen is that this problem, we are prescribing to the people, in other words, we are telling people what they should have, people are not telling us what they want, that’s where the disconnect is.”

Ngwale said the bill might be brought back to parliament for consideration in the future.

The current 160-year-old law criminalizes abortion, with the only exception being if the mother’s life is in danger. Offenders face up to 14 years in jail.

Advocates of the measure say despite the restrictive law, studies have shown many mothers still seek abortion services.

A joint study by Malawi’s College of Medicine and the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute reveals more than 140,000 backstreet abortions take place illegally every year in Malawi and 12,000 deaths result.

One of the latest is the death of a 14-year-old girl in central Malawi last month after she took an herbal concoction in an attempt to terminate a five-month pregnancy.

Advocates say the proposed bill aims to expand legal abortion from only cases where the mother’s life is at risk to include rape, incest, fetal deformity, and threats to health.

Amos Nyaka is the deputy chairperson for Coalition for Prevention of Unsafe Abortion, a local NGO championing liberalization of the abortion laws.

He was disappointed by the withdrawal of the measure.

“Of course, it reflects the disappointment that we have because all along from the advocacy work that we had, we had the impression that it would pass, but unfortunately, we noticed that the current crop of parliamentarians don’t seem to be in support of that,” Nyaka said.

Nyaka said the organization would consider having other options to have the abortion laws liberalized.

“One of which is to go for legal interpretation of the current law and see whether it is in line with the constitution or other legal instruments that we have,” Nyaka said. “And the other one would be to seek for the repeal of the already statues that are in our laws that were inherited from our former colonial masters since 1929.”

Pro-life activists and many faith-based groups have strongly opposed the passing of the abortion bill, saying doing so is tantamount to giving a person a license to kill and that it is a sin to take a life.

Source: Voice of America

KAMPALA, UGANDA – Uganda has reimposed a 42-day lockdown as coronavirus infections surge in the East African country. President Yoweri Museveni said in his Friday night address that he was tired of receiving calls about deaths, but critics say he presented a wish list that would instead worsen the situation for Ugandans.

Earlier Friday, the Health Ministry shared the latest coronavirus figures indicating 1,564 new cases recorded in the previous 24 hours.

This included 42 new deaths, bringing the total to 584. One thousand four active cases have been admitted at health facilities around the country.

After presenting those figures in his national address Friday night, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said Ugandans had been violating an earlier ban on interdistrict travel.

In his speech, Museveni said every village has community health workers who are in touch with families and keep records on the health status of the villages. They know how many people are in the village, how many are pregnant, how many have children, etc.

Private vehicles, other than those operated by essential workers will only be allowed to travel if they have permission from their local village chairman or health worker to transport a patient to hospital.

“All cross-boundary district and intradistrict movement of public transport and by private vehicles or boda bodas is hereby suspended for 42 days starting today,” said Museveni. “Why 42 days? Because we know that this virus, once it doesn’t spread in 14 days, it gets out of your body.”

Source: Voice of America

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON – Hundreds of sickle cell disease patients in Cameroon are using World Sickle Cell Day, June 19, to teach their neighbors that people with the disease can live longer, contrary to popular beliefs and stigma that label them as witches who must die before the age of 24. Cameroon says 20% of its 25 million people are carriers of the gene primarily seen in people of African descent. The government is also telling hesitant sickle cell patients to accept vaccinations against COVID-19.

At least 300 sickle cell patients and their family members turned out at the Cameroon Baptist Convention hospital at Etoug-Ebe, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. Hospital officials said hundreds of other sickle cell patients came out in the coastal city Douala and the English-speaking western towns of Buea, Bamenda, Kumba and Kumbo to observe the 2021 World Sickle Cell Day.

Fifty-five-year-old Ashu Egbe was diagnosed with sickle cell when he was seven months old. He says he is living proof that people can live long with the disorder, in which red blood cells contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin.

‘I am a sickle cell sufferer, I usually tell people that I am a sickle cell warrior because we go through the challenges of life, the pains and we think that we are warriors, we are overcomers,” Egbe said. “The younger ones should be courageous, avoid extreme colds or extreme heat and drink plenty of nonalcoholic fluids. You have a normal diet of good vegetables and then you have continuous follow up. You can live a good life.”

Egbe said he created Ashu Egbe Foundation to educate sickle cell patients on their rights and encourage people to consider sickle cell patients normal citizens.

Cameroon’s health ministry reports that 20% of the country’s 25 million people are carriers of the gene primarily seen in people of African descent.

Cameroon says patients suffer stigma, including superstitious beliefs that sickle cell is divine punishment for wrongdoing. There are beliefs that people with the disease die before they reach 25 years because they are witches and wizards. Couples with sickle cell children are forced by their families to divorce.

Twenty-seven-year-old Somo Francis Glenn lives with sickle cell. He says communities should stop abusing the rights of sickle cell patients. He says the government should ask hospitals to pay more attention to patients.

“At times we are sick, but we are afraid to go to the hospital because if you get to the hospital at 7 a.m., you shall be received at 10 [a.m.],” Somo said. “Imagine the pain you go through. Doctors will tell you that you are not the first person to have pain. Those are the things that make us go psychologically mad. I am begging the minister of health to create a hematology center only for sickle cell patients in Cameroon. Our immune system is first of all weak. COVID-19 and sickle cell are a whole lot of problems.”

Somo said the government could help eradicate the disease by asking people to have medical consultations before marriage and before having children.

Cameroon’s health minister, Manaouda Malachie, said special services exist in all hospitals in the central African state to treat sickle cell patients. He said patients should not fear going to hospitals for fear of being infected by COVID-19.

Lydie Ze Meka is president of Cameroon’s National Association for the Protection of Sickle Cell Patients. She says the association she leads is encouraging all sickle cell patients to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

She says sickle cell patients are reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19. She says the coronavirus attacks lungs and sickle cell patients have fragile lungs which are constantly exposed to pulmonary infections that can cause deaths. She says on this year’s World Sickle Cell Day, she is pleading with reticent patients to voluntarily agree to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to save their lives.

The United Nations reports that sickle cell is common in most of sub-Saharan Africa, affecting close to 3% of births in some African countries.

The U.N. recognizes June 19 as World Sickle Cell Day to raise awareness of the disease, which they say has not been eradicated due to ignorance. The U.N. encourages couples to have medical consultations before marriage and before having children.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – African health officials are urgently appealing for vaccines to combat a third wave of COVID-19 surging across the continent.

The World Health Organization reports the number of African COVID-19 cases has exceeded 5 million and the disease has killed 136,000 people.

WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti says cases have been increasing over the past four weeks. She says new cases in the past week have risen by nearly 30% across the continent and deaths have increased by 15%.

She says five countries—South Africa, Tunisia, Zambia, Uganda, and Namibia—account for 76% of new coronavirus infections in Africa.

“Africa is in the midst of a full-blown third wave. The sobering trajectory of surging cases should rouse everyone to urgent action,” said Moeti. “We’ve seen in India and elsewhere how quickly COVID-19 can rebound and overwhelm health systems. Public health measures must be scaled up fast to find, test, isolate and care for patients and to quickly trace and isolate their contacts.”

Moeti says it is urgent that Africa quickly receive more vaccines as the circulation of more contagious variants across the continent is accelerating. She says the Delta variant, the most virulent strain, has been reported in 14 African countries, and the Beta and Alpha variants have been found in more than 25 countries.

She says 12 million people in Africa now are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. She welcomes the receipt of vaccine doses from the WHO COVAX sharing facility and from government donations that has made this possible.

However, she says those 12 million people represent less than 1% of Africa’s 1.3 billion population.

“At the continental level, we are seeing a rise in cases similar to the first wave peak in July 2020 and about 50% of the second wave peak in January 2021. … Africa needs millions more doses here and now to curb the third wave, and best practice approaches will be key to make the most of the available vaccines,” said Moeti.

WHO says Africa needs 200 million vaccine doses by the end of September to inoculate 10% of the population against the coronavirus. The European Union has pledged to donate 100 million doses to low-income countries and the United States has said it would provide 80 million doses to poorer countries.

Source: Voice of America