Author: Web Desk

1 ICA Overview

The Integrated Context Analysis (ICA) is the first of three toolsthat inform a three-pronged approach (3PA) to integrated programming. The 3PA comprises a national level, data-driven context analysis (the ICA) which guides in positioning broad programme strategies around the country, and flags where discussions with sub-national and community representatives could be undertaken to create accurate seasonal livelihood calendars (Seasonal Livelihood Programme (SLPs)) that capture common practices, shocks and stressors to inform specific activities and interventions at sub-nation/ District level. SLPs can then suggest participatory discussions with specific communities and local authorities to help refine local development plans.

This ICA classifies and colour-codes the Districts of ZIMBABWE based on whether they have historically experienced high, medium or low levels of food insecurity and/or natural hazards. This provides evidence to support discussions around where, and for how long, preparedness, disaster risk reduction, social protection and market access efforts could be most appropriate in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable and food insecure populations.

This ICA was completed in JUNE 2021 under the leadership of the World Food Programme, in collaboration with government stakeholders and the technical support and guidance of the National University of Science and Technology.

At the outset of the exercise, the main stakeholders discussed and agreed on expectations and priorities of the ICA. In brief, these are related to: identification of broad national programmatic strategies; the possibility of its use as an advocacy tool to influence policy; and indication of hot spots and areas needing further interrogation. The ICA presented an opportunity to stakeholders to look at issues differently. The processes were very valuable as they challenged data management and stakeholders noted gaps and value of certain data. The ICA mapped high risk areas based on the recurrence of natural shocks and food insecurity levels.

The maps and tables in this Overview section summarise the ICA results and recommendations for an initial reading. The sections that follow elaborate on detailed thematic findings, general policy recommendations, general programme recommendations for more detailed discussions and decision-making, and technical annexes and data tables.

Source: World Food Programme

The World Health Organization said on Monday it is tracking a few dozen cases of two new sub-variants of the highly transmissible omicron strain of the coronavirus to assess whether they are more infectious or dangerous.

It has added BA.4 and BA.5, sister variants of the original BA.1 omicron variant, to its list for monitoring. It is already tracking BA.1 and BA.2 — now globally dominant — as well as BA.1.1 and BA.3.

The WHO said it had begun tracking them because of their "additional mutations that need to be further studied to understand their impact on immune escape potential."

Viruses mutate all the time but only some mutations affect their ability to spread or evade prior immunity from vaccination or infection, or the severity of disease they cause.

For instance, BA.2 now represents nearly 94% of all sequenced cases and is more transmissible than its siblings, but the evidence so far suggests it is no more likely to cause severe disease.

Only a few dozen cases of BA.4 and BA.5 have been reported to the global GISAID database, according to WHO.

The UK's Health Security Agency said last week BA.4 had been found in South Africa, Denmark, Botswana, Scotland and England from Jan. 10 to March 30.

All the BA.5 cases were in South Africa as of last week, but on Monday Botswana's health ministry said it had identified four cases of BA.4 and BA.5, all among people aged 30 to 50 who were fully vaccinated and experiencing mild symptoms.

Source: Voice of America

After two years of racing to vaccinate the world against Covid-19, the number of available doses now surpasses demand in many areas.

Yet a gap remains in vaccination rates between the richest and poorest countries.

On Friday, Gavi, which co-leads the Covax global distribution scheme, is holding a summit calling for more funds to address the issue of inequality in vaccine access.

More than 13 billion doses have been produced since the pandemic, 11 billion of which have been administered, according to the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).

Science research group Airfinity expect nine billion more doses to be produced this year. Pfizer alone plans to make four billion doses.

Yet demand could fall to six billion doses this year, IFPMA’s director general Thomas Cueni said.

“Since mid-2021, global vaccine production has exceeded global vaccine demand and this gap has continuously risen,” Cueni said.

By next year, production could exceed demand by 1.3 to 3.1 billion doses, he added.

Many richer nations are now approaching oversupply. European Union and G7 countries had a surplus of 497 million doses at the end of last month.

There are fears that doses could go to waste. Covid vaccines have a relatively short shelf-life — AstraZeneca and Novavax’s jabs have a six-month expiry date.

Airfinity says 241 million doses have passed their sell-by date so far during the pandemic.

Nevertheless, billions of people remain unvaccinated around the world, most of them in developing nations.

Covax, an international public-private partnership co-led by WHO and Gavi, has delivered 1.4 billion doses to 145 countries — far short of the planned two billion doses by end-2021.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that inequality in vaccine access could lead to the emergence of new, possibly more contagious variants.

The WHO wants 70 percent of every country’s population vaccinated by July.

But records are uneven.

Nearly 80 percent of France’s population, for example, has received two doses. But only 15 percent of the population on the continent of Africa is fully vaccinated, according to Oxford University data.

An average of 42 percent of the population of 92 low- and middle-income countries participating in Covax have had two doses.

“Vaccine inequity is the biggest moral failure of our times and people and countries are paying the price,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier this year.

Covax says it now has enough doses to vaccinate around 45 percent of the population in the 92 countries receiving donations. But 25 of those countries lack the infrastructure for an effective immunisation campaign.

Making matters worse, many developing countries are being donated doses too close to their expiry date.

UNICEF’s supply division director Etleva Kadilli said that in December almost more than 100 million doses had been refused, “the majority due to product shelf life”.

Gavi has ruled that doses must be valid for at least 10 weeks on arriving in countries.

Countries like South Africa and India have long called for the World Trade Organisation to suspend intellectual property rights for vaccines and anti-Covid treatments, so they can massively boost production.

After fierce opposition from pharmaceutical giants, a first compromise was reached between the United States, European Union, India and South Africa last month.

But several key countries like Switzerland have yet to sign on. Doctors Without Borders also says there are “key limitations” in the deal, such as covering only vaccines and geographical limits.

Pharmaceutical companies argue that patents are not the real problem.

Cueni of IFPMA, a big pharma lobby group, said the problem was now logistics.

“What we need is money to have storage, transportation, more trained health workers, campaigns to counter misinformation: these are the real challenges and not the patent waiver,” he said.

Current vaccines target the virus that swept the world in 2020. While they greatly reduce the risk of serious illness from Covid, they only provide partial protection — particularly against newer variants such as the now dominant Omicron.

Several vaccine manufacturers have begun testing jabs that target Omicron. They have hit delays but could be available in a few months, if approved by health authorities.

And despite the billions yet to receive a first dose, the United States, Britain, France and Israel have started rolling out a fourth, starting with the most vulnerable.

On Wednesday, the EU’s medicines watchdog approved a second booster for people aged 80 years and over.

“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” Tedros has warned.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Since the deployment of the multi-partner country support teams in January 2022, there has been good progress in vaccine absorption and uptake in the African Region.

Among countries that reported an increase in vaccine uptake in February and/or March, Mozambique, Ethiopia,

Uganda, Kenya and Ghana recorded the highest increase in vaccination coverage. In February and March 2022, Ethiopia implemented the second round of a mass vaccination campaign, which further boosted COVID-19 vaccine coverage in the country, with increased numbers of people receiving their second dose, more people starting with their first dose, and increased uptake of booster doses.

Two countries, Seychelles and Mauritius, surpassed the target of 70% of the population fully vaccinated by the end of December 2021. Four countries – Rwanda, Botswana, Cabo Verde and Mozambique – are on track to reach this target, having vaccinated between 40% and 70% of their populations by the end of December 2021.

However, challenges remain. In the African Region, 12.8% of the population were fully vaccinated as of 27 March 2022 (10.2% at the end of February 2022), compared to 57.5% globally. Thirteen countries are yet to surpass 10% of their population fully vaccinated including two of the most populous countries in the Region (Nigeria and Democratic Republic of the Congo).

The COVAX Facility continues to be the leading source of vaccines delivered in the African Region, accounting for 68% of doses received.

The absorption rate of the vaccines received remains suboptimal overall, with only 54.9% of doses administered of the quantity received. Twentyfour countries out of 46 (52%) have administered fewer than 50% of doses received. Vaccine doses administered increased by 23% in February 2022 compared to January 2022, but in March 2022 the number of vaccine doses administered decreased by 35%.

On average, 8 271 347 doses were administered per week in March 2022 compared to 12 734 357 doses per week in February 2022.

The Region needs a twelvefold increase in the weekly number of doses to be administered from April 2022 to June 2022 to continue to move towards 70% target .

Thirty-one countries out of 46 have reported expired doses. The percentage of expired doses of all doses received was 1.7% among the 31 countries and 0.9% in the African Region overall.

As a result of mass vaccination campaigns, nine countries out of the 20 priority countries in the WHO African Region recorded an increase in doses administered in February 2022 (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, GuineaBissau, Madagascar, South Sudan, Ghana, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania). However, only three have continued to record increased vaccine uptake in March 2022 (Ghana, Cameroon and South Sudan) in addition to Mozambique, Mali and Burundi. This shows that it is necessary to keep up the momentum in vaccine uptake between mass vaccination campaigns. It is critical for countries to intensify activities aimed at promoting continued use of health facility vaccination sites, as well as implement the provider-initiated vaccination approach in health facilities. In January 2022, WHO, UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance launched the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership (CoVDP) as an inter-agency initiative. This will build on existing resources globally, regionally and incountry in order to accelerate vaccination coverage in those countries most in need of support. CoVDP complies with the principles of one country team, one plan, one budget and one support team. In March 2022, in-depth country calls were held with Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone to discuss issues around urgent funding requests, and identify sources of funding, enhance operational planning and improve vaccination service delivery. The first quarter of 2022 has shown improvements in vaccine uptake and coverage across the Region, which is benefiting from the deployment of the WHO AFRO multi-partner country support teams, which started in January 2022. Although challenges remain, this initiative, along with CoVDP, promises to continue to improve vaccine absorption and uptake and move more countries in the Region closer to the 70% target.

Source: World Health Organization

NAIROBI, It has been a week of crises in East Africa, characterized by shortages of fuel and rising prices of consumer goods, as the region continued to shake off COVID-19 blues to revive state economies.I

Many areas have recently experienced biting fuel shortages and, where the commodity is available, the price has risen to prohibitive levels.

The cost of living is rising. Inflation is at 6.29 percent in Kenya, 3.2 percent in Uganda, 4.2 percent in Rwanda, 3.8 percent in Tanzania, 13.3 percent in Burundi, 25 percent in South Sudan, and five percent in DR Congo.

In Uganda, where fuel supply has been disrupted since January, there are places where a liter of petrol costs $3.

Kenya was hit by a shortage this past week, crippling public transport services. Traders claimed the shortage had led to an increase in prices of fast-moving goods.

In Kenya, the fuel shortage was blamed on the failure of the government to pay oil marketers their subsidy. Even after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a supplementary budget for the payment of Ksh34 billion ($298 million) to the Petroleum Development Levy Fund (PDLF), the shortage continued on account of a dispute over the amount that the government owes the oil companies. Officials said it was Ksh13 billion ($112 million), but the companies claim they are owed more than Ksh20 billion ($173 million).

Source: Nam News Network