Arif Husain, Chief Economist at World Food Programme (WFP), briefs reporters on the Secretary-General’s policy brief on the impact of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition,9 June 2020
Malaysia and Singapore have distinguished themselves for first ignoring the problem and then concentrating migrants in structures that favored the infection. The city-state, which employs nearly one and a half million migrant workers, has “locked up” about 300,000 of them in about forty dormitories with 10 or 20 people per room.
Demonstrators rallied in large cities such as Sydney and Melbourne and in small towns across the country after a court overturned a ruling Friday declaring the Sydney protest illegal on health grounds.
In a press conference in Geneva on 8 Jun, Tedros said almost 75 per cent of cases reported yesterday cases come from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia. He said most countries in the African region are still experiencing an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, with some reporting cases in new geographic areas, although most countries in the region have less than 1,000 cases. He added that there was also an increase in the numbers of cases in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia
With Nigerian businesses struggling because of coronavirus lockdown measures, the use of mobile money to transact business is growing rapidly. The use of mobile money grew by almost 15 percent in March, and experts say the practice is expected to become even more common as the pandemic continues
As hospitals in New York treat the flood of patients with COVID and as people wear masks and gloves to grocery stores and banks, discarded Personal Protection Equipment dumped in the city’s streets is becoming a health and environmental hazard
Some parts of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, have been without running water for weeks, after a landslide destroyed a water pipe, making frequent handwashing for coronavirus prevention a challenge. Water distribution points have been set up to help tens of thousands of Kenyans to cope. But the gatherings to collect rationed water risks exposing more people to the virus
WHO’s Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said the Executive Group of the Solidarity Trial had last week decided to implement a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial, “because of concerns raised about the safety of the drug.”
Zuhura Hassan is a mother in Tanzania struggling to keep her son safe during the pandemic. Zuhura’s son, a 5-year-old boy named Hayyan Hamoud, is one of the estimated 11,000 Tanzanian children who are born with sickle cell disease each year. SCD is a blood disorder that leads to immunity deficiency. This puts Hayyan Hammnd into a high-risk group that could become more severely compromised by COVID-19 should it infect him
The World Health Organization has warned that malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa could double this year to 769,000 due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Nigeria has the highest cases of malaria in the world but with the global focus on controlling the spread of COVID-19, many malaria patients are not getting to hospitals and intervention could fall through the cracks. Nigerian technology startup Wellahealth is trying to bridge the gap with rapid malaria testing. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja