Day: December 10, 2021

JOHANNESBURG —

South Africa's health minister has confirmed omicron is the most transmissible coronavirus variant yet but does not appear as severe. The minister, Dr. Joe Phaala, says previous concerns that omicron was hospitalizing more children appear to be unfounded.

More than 22,000 people tested positive with COVID-19 Thursday in South Africa, double the number of daily cases seen last week.

Phaala said Friday the omicron variant discovered last month is driving the country’s fourth wave.

He says omicron has become the dominant variant, spreading more rapidly and overtaking the delta variant.

“The reproductive number of the virus, which shows how many people are likely to be infected by one person is currently 2.5, which is higher than it was at any prior point in the pandemic. So, whether we speak about the alpha, the beta, the delta, none of them had even reached anywhere close to the two,” he expressed.

Omicron also appears to be infecting people who have been vaccinated or previously sick with COVID-19.

More than 450 people were hospitalized Thursday.

But Phaala says early data suggests omicron may not be as severe as previous variants.

“A lower proportion of patients admitted in the fourth wave — currently this is the fourth wave — had severe disease as compared to pace admitted in a similar timeframe in the second and third waves.”

Severe disease is defined as people needing hospitalization, oxygen or ventilators or dying from the virus.

Officials expressed concern last week over an increase in children being hospitalized.

Phaala says it now appears that, like previous variants, omicron is not causing severe respiratory symptoms in children.

“Early data from hospital surveillance, also reports from public and private hospitals, indicate that admissions are largely in children admitted for other reasons, and then tested positive and for very short durations.”

For average patients, the ministry says anecdotal reports from doctors describe symptoms of omicron as ranging from a scratchy throat, cough and fever to diarrhea and vomiting.

More severe cases are mainly among the unvaccinated, who make up at least 70% of hospitalizations.

That is reinforcing the government’s message to the public to get inoculated.

Dr. Michelle Groome is with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She notes that “the majority of admissions are in unvaccinated individuals. I think we really know which public health measures are working in terms of the vaccination, proper wearing of masks, social distancing and limits in particular large gatherings.”

Still, more than half of South African adults have yet to receive their first dose. Phaala had a clear message Friday to those who refuse vaccinations.

“We would want to urge them not to listen to what they read on social media, all the anti-vax stories, protect yourselves by coming forward and taking the vaccine now.”

Amid the spread of omicron, South Africa is now approving booster shots.

Rollout could begin as early as next week for the Johnson & Johnson vaccines, while Pfizer boosters will be available starting December 28.

Source: Voice of America

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON —

Cameroonian authorities have vowed a safe African Football Cup of Nations when they host the biennial tournament in January. Cameroon's Anglophone separatists have threatened further attacks on two towns that have stadiums to be used for group matches.

Cameroon’s police, military and senior government officials have been holding meetings to ensure a successful African Football Cup of Nations, AFCON, which runs from January 9 to February 6.

On Thursday, Cameroon assembled its 10 regional governors in the capital to examine the country's readiness to host 24 African soccer teams, officials and thousands of fans expected for the tournaments.

Paul Atanga Nji is Cameroon’s territorial administration minister and permanent secretary of its National Security Council. He says President Paul Biya ordered the meeting to make sure Cameroon gives Africa and the world the most successful AFCON the continent has ever seen.

Nji says Biya does not want the games to be disrupted by separatists and politicians, whom he accused of wanting to project a bad image of Cameroon to the outside world.

"We have told politicians that Cameroonians want a peaceful CAN [AFCON]. Politicians should be reasonable. All Cameroonians should be ambassadors behind our great leader, President Paul Biya, to make this AFCON a great event. Any attempt to disrupt public order will be dealt with squarely. I am very clear, the regional governors have taken up the challenge to promote peace, unity, tranquility, and living together during the AFCON."

Nji specifically accused opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who still insists he won the 2018 presidential elections, of planning to disrupt the games.

But Kamto says he will be educating civilians on the need for Cameroon to revise its electoral code, which he says favors Biya, during the AFCON matches.

Meanwhile, separatist groups on social media platforms have issued warnings that AFCON matches should not be played in Limbe and Buea, two towns in the South-West region.

Langmi Nestor, spokesperson of the separatist Ambazonia National Self Defense Council says fighters have been instructed to disrupt the games if Biya does not withdraw its troops fighting separatists in the English-speaking western regions.

"Biya must either come to the negotiation table [with separatists] or we give sleepless nights. The freedom of the people of Ambazonia is far more important than any nonsense in the name of the African Nations Cup."

Armed groups have been fighting to separate Cameroon’s two English-speaking western regions from the rest of Cameroon and its French-speaking majority for the past five years.

This week, defense officials said extra troops have been deployed to protect soccer fans and players all over Cameroon and vowed the matches in Limbe and Buea would go on.

The military says it has deployed troops to the border between French-speaking and English-speaking regions to stop rebels from advancing during AFCON. The military says it is calling on civilians to assist in maintaining peace during AFCON by reporting strangers and suspicious activity in towns and villages.

AFCON’S opening match is a contest between Burkina Faso and Cameroon, a five-time Africa Cup of Nations champion.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — Growing inequality and the proliferation of multiple crises around the world have dashed hopes raised for a better, more equitable world 73 years after the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres warns the world is at a crossroads.

"The COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and the expansion of digital technology into all areas of our lives have created new threats to human rights,” Guterres said. Exclusion and discrimination are rampant. Public space is shrinking. Poverty and hunger are rising for the first time in decades. Millions of children are missing out on their right to education. Inequality is deepening.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet says the cost of soaring inequalities is intolerable. But, since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, she notes significant strides, if not progress, have been made. She says the world has grown richer, people are living longer, and more women have gained a greater measure of autonomy.

Over the past 20 years, however, she says a succession of global shocks has undermined that progress. She says it is particularly distressing to realize the extent to which inequalities are fueling the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic on peoples’ lives.

Bachelet recently returned from a mission to Burkina Faso and Niger, countries riven by violence and lawlessness. Her spokesman, Rupert Colville, says the high commissioner saw the ruinous impact on those societies from the pandemic, climate change, economic distress, and inequality.

Colville says Bachelet clearly understood how it is that young men who have no jobs, no future, no hope are tempted to join the armed struggle when offered a gun and $10.

“There you see the knock-on effect, which then has results in people being killed, in villages being destroyed, in women being raped and in just general horror stories, which are rooted in the socio-economic problems and inequalities that we are talking about today,” Colville said.

Human rights chief Bachelet says equality is at the heart of human rights. She says equality also is at the heart of the solutions that can carry humanity through this period of global crisis.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — The U.N. refugee agency says intercommunal fighting over scarce resources in Cameroon has triggered the mass exodus of more than 30,000 refugees to neighboring Chad.

Deadly clashes erupted December 5 in the Cameroonian border village of Ouloumsa following a dispute between herders, fishermen and farmers over dwindling water resources. Violence then spread to neighboring villages, where intercommunal rivals burned 10 villages to the ground.

The U.N. refugee agency says 22 people have been killed and 30 seriously injured over the past six days. In addition, women and children account for most of the 30,000 refugees who have fled into Chad.

UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov says the situation remains volatile, forcing his agency to temporarily suspend its operations in the affected areas. He says five staff members, as well as colleagues who have been on an assessment mission, have been moved to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena.

Cheshirkov blames the rising tensions between intercommunal farmers and fishermen on climate change, which he says is getting worse.

"They depend on the waters of the Logone River, which is one of the main tributaries of Lake Chad," he said. "Lake Chad has been shrinking. Over the course of six decades now, it has lost 95 percent of its surface water. These communities rely on that water to live, to fish, to grow crops and cultivate them, to take care of their livestock. They are not able to do this."

Cheshirkov says similar climate crises can be seen in many parts of the world — in the Sahel, in far north Cameroon and East Africa, as well as in the drought corridor of Latin America, and South Asia. He says 90 percent of refugees come from climate vulnerable hotspots.

UNHCR and Cameroonian authorities have been leading reconciliation efforts to end the intercommunal violence, he says, adding that the situation could escalate unless the root causes of the crisis are addressed.

Chad is home to nearly 1 million refugees and internally displaced people, and Cameroon has more than 1.5 million refugees and IDPs. The UNHCR says it has received slightly more than half the money it needs to run its lifesaving operations in both countries. It is appealing to the international community for more support.

Source: Voice of America