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Model behavior: A new COVID vaccine is on the block – and the US scientists behind it decided to make it available to the world (read: no patents, no-frills tech transfer, and a round of applause from us to the makers, Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine). Production is underway in India under the drug name CORBEVAX, and its inventors speculate that it will soon reach more people in middle- and low-income countries than those donated by G7 nations. It’s...
Anne Paisley
Anne Paisley is ONE's Associate Editorial Director. Prior to joining ONE in 2019, she worked at Devex and the Center for American Progress. She holds an MA in International Policy from Georgetown University and a BA in International Affairs and Economics from George Washington University, both with honors.
In my lifetime I’ve had the privilege and honor to meet American presidents and leaders from all over the world, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu commanded more authority than any person I have ever known. His was borne not of faith, nor of religious hierarchy or the status of the positions he held; it emerged from who he was.
He was fierce, and never hesitated to call out injustice, whether to comrade or foe. He was fair – always willing and...
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Africa rising: COVID-19 cases are surging across Africa, with many countries experiencing a fourth wave amidst the Omicron variant. In Nigeria, the number of daily confirmed infections over the past week jumped from 76 to 451, following the discovery of the new variant in the country. Both South Africa and Kenya surpassed the WHO high-risk threshold of 5% for COVID-19 cases, with South Africa exceeding a 30% positivity rate and Kenya at 6.5%. However, despite the surge of COVID-19 infections in Africa, the number...
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) allocated $650 billion worth of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to its members in August, and activists are pressuring rich nations to channel, or recycle, their SDRs to low- and middle-income countries to help them recover faster from the COVID-19 pandemic. Advocates for the recycling of SDRs argue that low- and middle-income countries, especially in Africa, should benefit more from the new SDR allocation as their economies have been badly battered by the pandemic. As a result...
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Vaccine bandits: A black market for vaccines is undermining Kenya’s vaccination campaign, just weeks before a mandate goes into effect. Corrupt officials are diverting vaccines, falsifying records, and smuggling vials (to mostly remote areas) for $30 to $50 each. These vaccine bandits create significant health concerns: the doses are often transported without adequate refrigeration, they risk contamination, and they aren’t being administered by healthcare professionals with proper sanitation or precautions. The Kenyan government offers doses for free to its citizens, but...
Beatrice, a beautician at a spa in Nairobi, first tried to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in June. But all the health facilities she visited turned her away because they had no vaccine doses. All had either not received any supplies or they had run out. Eventually, she received her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a health facility some 50 kilometres outside the city.
When it was time to get her second shot, Beatrice was told she might have...
South Africans are furious over re-imposed travel bans after the Omicron variant was detected in South Africa on 24 November. The UK was the first country to announce a red list of countries that citizens were prohibited from travelling to. This list includes South Africa and Botswana – the two African countries with the first confirmed cases of Omicron infections – as well as Angola, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The US, EU countries, Canada, UAE, Australia, and...
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Omicron rising: Health officials in South Africa announced Wednesday that the Omicron variant has become the most prevalent version of COVID-19 in the country. The number of cases doubled from Tuesday, and test positivity climbed from 10.2% to 16.5%. In Gauteng province, early analyses suggest that COVID-19 cases and test positivity are increasing faster than in previous waves. While hospitalizations in the country are also rising, it’s too soon to draw conclusions about Omicron’s transmissibility and lethality, and officials are urging caution. On Wednesday,...
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Face, meet palm: At least 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been thrown away since last December in Canada, roughly 2.6% of the total number of doses delivered across the country. Some pharmacists are still being encouraged to throw away unused doses, rather than give them to non-eligible people. Meanwhile, only 6.9% of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated and COVID-19 deaths have increased the fastest in low-income countries, which have the lowest vaccination rates globally. Strive Masiyiwa, head of the African Vaccine Acquisition Task...
Cases of sexual violence against women are increasing in Ethiopia, as the conflict between the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed continues. Seventy women in Nifas Mewcha in the Amhara region reported being raped by TPLF fighters during a nine-day period in August when the armed group took control of the town, according to an Amnesty International report. Many of the women said they experienced physical and mental health problems after the...