Top news Shocking symbol: Europe is set to receive millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses produced in South Africa. Up to 10 million Johnson & Johnson shots partially produced by South African manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare are to be exported to Europe in August and September, and millions more were exported in recent months. Meanwhile, South Africa is yet to receive the overwhelming majority of the 31 million J&J doses it ordered from the company, a key reason why only 7% of...
The death of 22-year-old Benson Njiru Ndwiga and his 19-year-old brother Emmanuel in police custody in Kianjokoma has once again highlighted the excessive use of force and violence by Kenya’s police when enforcing COVID rules. Police say that the brothers, both college students, died after jumping out of a moving police vehicle after they were rounded up for flouting the nationwide curfew time of 10 pm, which the government extended on 30 July after a nation-wide spike in COVID-19...
Top news Overwhelmed: Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Africa have ticked over 7 million, as the virus continues to rip through the continent’s largely unvaccinated population. In Zimbabwe, record numbers of deaths from the virus have led to widespread delays in burials. Undertakers are struggling to cope with the added pressure, and bereaved family members are waiting days for a burial slot. In Senegal, hospitals are quickly becoming overwhelmed: 90% of calls to the country’s emergency paramedic service are currently...
In May, the Driftwood Club, a popular beach hotel in Malindi, closed its doors to the public, becoming one of the many hotels in the Kenyan seaside to shut down permanently. Earlier this year, Old Man and the Sea, one of the oldest and most iconic fish restaurants in this coastal town, also closed. Tourism is the economic backbone of Kenya’s coastal region. Foreign, mainly Italian, tourists usually start trickling into Malindi in July, at the start of the summer...
Top news Surging: Deaths from COVID-19 in Africa are surging, with the average daily number of confirmed deaths ticking past 1,000 for the first time since the pandemic began. Confirmed deaths from the virus have increased by 80% in the past four weeks, driven by the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant. In Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city, six people are dying per day and the positivity rate of those being tested has increased eightfold in the last month....
COVID-19 has exposed fault lines in both rich and poor countries. From failing public healthcare systems to racial inequality, the pandemic has laid bare unjust and inequitable structures that are failing the most vulnerable and marginalised groups. Poverty levels are rising globally. Between 88 million and 115 million more people were pushed into poverty in 2020 because of the pandemic, according to the World Bank. In South Africa, the pandemic exacerbated inequality levels. This was evident during the protests and...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and read on for the impact of the pandemic on global education, Africa’s record COVID-19 death rate, and warnings of an impending “orphan crisis.” Top news COVID-19 updates Grim milestone: This week, Africa’s daily death COVID-19 rate tipped over the peak reached in January. ONE’s COVID-19 Africa Tracker shows that in the week to 26 July, more...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. While Western nations are focusing their attention on their post-COVID economic recovery, Kenya is confronting a crisis with far-reaching social and economic consequences: rising poverty levels. Kenya gained an additional 2 million “new poor” as of last November due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update. “The pandemic is inflicting tragic loss of life and human suffering...
Top news Destructive pathway: COVID-19 infections in Africa are increasing at their fastest rate ever, with over 1 million confirmed cases recorded in the past month alone. The situation in at least 18 African countries is dire, as chronic shortages of vaccines leave millions exposed to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant. With only 1.4% of the continent’s population fully vaccinated, daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths have more than doubled in the past month and are currently sitting just...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a “shadow pandemic” across the globe: domestic violence cases have risen dramatically since pandemic-induced lockdowns and school closures last year, and women and girls are at greater risk of sexual abuse. According to a UN Women report, reports of domestic violence increased by 30% in France in the first few weeks of the start of the pandemic. In...