Category: Health

South Sudan’s National Task Force on COVID-19 is sending back 72,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to the COVAX facility for use in other countries before the doses expire.

South Sudan received 132,000 doses in late March from COVAX, a global coalition that works to ensure fair and equitable access of coronavirus vaccines worldwide.

The ministry decided to give back the doses after discussing the matter with the World Health Organization, said South Sudan’s Health Ministry undersecretary, Dr. Mayen Machuot.

“We don’t want to run the risk of [the drug] expiring here in our hands. It will be accounted for, so we are committing back an amount of 72,000 doses so that they are used by someone who can deploy these doses in one week and then once we finish with our 60,000,” Machuot told reporters at a Juba news conference.

The COVAX facility wrote back to the government, saying it was happy with the arrangement, as the doses will not go to waste.

Machuot said South Sudan failed to use its doses because of a slow, initial response from health care workers to get vaccinated, delays by parliament to approve the vaccine’s use, and a lengthy time to train vaccinators.

“We are struggling economically and this means it is labor intensive. It is an emergency vaccination, that’s why we have problems of funding the deployment itself. We are actually tightening our belts and that’s why hopefully in the next two weeks, the 60,000 we have will be dispersed all over the country,” said Machuot.

Dr. Angelo Goup, director for emergency preparedness and response at the health ministry and a COVID task force member, said after health workers and the elderly were prioritized, the team opened vaccinations to the general public but many people were still reluctant to get the jab.

“One of the major challenges that is raised by citizens are these negative videos on social media. We have assembled those videos whereby some people say this vaccine is not a vaccine, it’s just a genetic material for the virus, it doesn’t protect people,” Dr. Goup told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program.

He said the task force is doing its best to dispel those kinds of myths and educate the public about the importance of taking the vaccine. He urged people 16 and above to get vaccinated for their safety. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Source: Voice of America

Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in eastern Congo with little warning, leaving at least 15 people dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said Sunday.

The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the northwest in Sake, the U.N. children’s agency said Sunday.

More than 170 children were feared missing Sunday, and UNICEF officials said they were organizing transit centers to help unaccompanied children in the wake of the disaster.

Goma ultimately was largely spared the mass destruction it suffered the last time the volcano erupted back in 2002. Hundreds died then and more than 100,000 people were left homeless. But in outlying villages closer to the volcano, Sunday was marked by grief and uncertainty.

Aline Bichikwebo and her baby managed to escape when the lava flow reached her village, but she said her mother and father were among those who died. Community members gave a provisional toll of 10 dead in Bugamba alone, though provincial authorities said it was too soon to know how many lives were lost.

Bichikwebo says she tried to rescue her father but wasn’t strong enough to move him to safety before the family’s home was ignited by lava.

“I am asking for help because everything we had is gone,” she said, clutching her baby. “We don’t even have a pot. We are now orphans and we have nothing.”

The air remained thick with smoke because a number of homes had caught fire when the lava came.

“People are still panicking and are hungry,” resident Alumba Sutoye said. “They don’t even know where they are going to spend the night.”

Elsewhere, authorities said at least five people died in a truck crash while they were trying to evacuate Goma, but the scale of the loss had yet to be determined in some of the hardest-hit communities.

Residents said there was little warning before the dark sky turned a fiery red, sending people running in all directions. One woman went into labor and gave birth while fleeing the eruption to Rwanda, the national broadcaster there said.

Smoke rose Sunday from smoldering heaps of lava in the Buhene area near the city.

“We have seen the loss of almost an entire neighborhood,” Innocent Bahala Shamavu said. “All the houses in Buhene neighborhood were burned and that’s why we are asking all the provincial authorities and authorities at the national level as well as all the partners, all the people of good faith in the world, to come to the aid of this population.”

Elsewhere, witnesses said lava had engulfed one highway connecting Goma with the city of Beni. However, the airport appeared to be spared the same fate as 2002 when lava flowed onto the runways.

Goma is a regional hub for many humanitarian agencies in the region, as well as the U.N. peacekeeping mission. While Goma is home to many U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers, much of surrounding eastern Congo is under threat from myriad armed groups vying for control of the region’s mineral resources.

Source: Voice of America

Ethiopia for the first time accused troops from neighbouring Eritrea of killing 110 civilians in a massacre in the war-hit Tigray region.

The attorney general’s office sharply contradicted law enforcement officials who claimed earlier this month that the “great majority” of those killed in the city of Axum were fighters, not civilians.

The killings in Axum in late November represent one of the deadliest incidents of the six-month-old war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The Tigray conflict erupted in early November when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops to detain and disarm leaders of the regional ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Abiy said the move came in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps.

In earlier reports on what happened in Axum, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty blamed Eritrean troops fighting in Tigray and said the dead were mostly civilians.

Amnesty said the Eritreans “went on a rampage and systematically killed hundreds of civilians in cold blood.”

In Friday’s statement, the attorney general’s office said the Eritreans engaged in reprisal killings after pro-TPLF forces attacked them.

“The investigation indicates that 110 civilians have been killed on these dates by Eritrean troops,” the statement said, referring to Nov 27-28.

“The investigation shows that 70 civilians have been killed in the city while they were outdoors. On the other hand, 40 civilians seem to have been taken out of their homes and killed in home-to-home raids conducted by Eritrean troops,” it said.

Eritrea’s information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Eritrean troops, who teamed up with the Ethiopian military, have been implicated in multiple massacres and other atrocities during the Tigray conflict, allegations Asmara denies.

The US and EU have repeatedly called for the Eritreans to withdraw.

“The continued presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray further undermines Ethiopia’s stability and national unity,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement last week.

“We again call upon the Government of Eritrea to remove its forces from Tigray.”

Ethiopia has said it is committed to investigating human rights abuses committed during the conflict.

Friday’s statement said that while Ethiopian troops had tried to minimise civilian casualties, “several allegations concerning the killing of civilians, sexual violence, [and] the looting and destruction of property have since been reported.”

It said the government takes those allegations “seriously” and has begun prosecuting suspects.

Military prosecutors have pressed charges against 28 soldiers “suspected of killing civilians in a situation where there was no military necessity,” it said.

“The trials of these suspects are underway and the verdicts are also expected to be handed down shortly.”

An additional 25 soldiers have been charged with “committing acts of sexual violence and rape.”

Three soldiers have already been convicted and sentenced for rape, while one soldier has been convicted and sentenced for killing a civilian, the statement said, without providing details. — NNN-AGENCIES

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Lava from a volcanic eruption approached the airport of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s main city of Goma late Saturday, and the government urged residents to evacuate.

As the red glow of Mount Nyiragongo tinged the night sky above the lakeside city of about 2 million, thousands of Goma residents carrying mattresses and other belongings fled the city on foot, many toward the frontier with Rwanda.

Nyiragongo’s last eruption in 2002 killed 250 people and left 120,000 homeless. It is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and is considered among the most dangerous.

Rwanda’s Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management said more than 3,500 Congolese had crossed the border. Rwandan state media said they would be lodged in schools and places of worship.

‘Goma is the target’

New fractures were opening in the volcano, letting lava flow south toward the city after initially flowing east toward Rwanda, said Dario Tedesco, a volcanologist based in Goma.

“Now Goma is the target,” Tedesco told Reuters. “It’s similar to 2002. I think that the lava is going towards the city center.

“It might stop before or go on. It’s difficult to forecast.”

Emmanuel de Merode, head of Virunga National Park, asked park employees in parts of Goma to evacuate, according to a note seen by Reuters. He said lava had reached the international airport on the eastern edge of the city but that it was not likely to reach other parts of Goma.

Celestin Kasereka, head of scientific research at the Goma Volcano Observatory (OVG), told reporters he did not think the lava was flowing fast enough to reach Goma.

A U.N. source said all U.N. aircraft had been evacuated to the city of Bukavu to the south and Entebbe in neighboring Uganda. The power was also out across much of Goma.

Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde convened an emergency meeting in the capital, Kinshasa, where the government activated an evacuation plan for Goma.

“We hope that the measures that have been taken this evening will allow the population to reach the points that were indicated to them in this plan,” government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said in comments broadcast on national television.

President Felix Tshisekedi will cut short a trip to Europe to return to Congo on Sunday, the presidency said on Twitter.

In the grip of panic

On the streets of Goma, panic spread quickly.

“We are panicked because we have just seen the entire city covered by a light that is not electricity or lamps,” said John Kilosho. “We don’t know what to do. We don’t even know how to behave. There is no information.”

Others fled to the city center from villages and neighborhoods threatened by lava on the northern outskirts.

“We looked at the sky and saw the red color of the volcano,” said Richard Hazika Diouf from the Majengo neighborhood. “We have fled to seek shelter in town.”

Volcano watchers have been worried that the volcanic activity observed in the last five years at Nyiragongo mirrors that in the years preceding eruptions in 1977 and 2002.

Volcanologists at the OVG, which monitors Nyiragongo, have struggled to make regular, basic checks since the World Bank cut funding amid embezzlement allegations.

Source: Voice of America