Jab not yet approved for children, who make up most cases, while officials warn millions more doses will be required
The first donation of mpox vaccines arrived in Democratic Republic of the Congo on Thursday, but officials say millions more doses will be needed.
The announcement came amid warnings that the geographical spread of the virus, formerly known as monkeypox, was increasing, and swift action was needed across the continent to contain the outbreak.
Continue reading...Moussa Dadis Camara convicted of crimes against humanity after ordering 2009 crackdown on unarmed protesters
A court in Guinea has found the former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and seven other military commanders guilty of crimes against humanity in a long-awaited verdict relating to a notorious massacre and mass rape that took place in 2009.
In a ruling in the capital, Conakry, the initial charges, including murder, rape and kidnapping, were recategorised as crimes against humanity. Afterward, Camara and his former police chief Moussa Tiegboro Camara were given 20-year prison sentences for ordering a crackdown on thousands of unarmed protesters, who were aggrieved that he had decided to stand in the presidential election the following year.
Continue reading...Migration through the treacherous Darién gap is slowing as less restrictive air routes open up between South and Central America
Two children from the west African country of Guinea who were abandoned in Bogotá’s airport have been taken into government custody after spending several days on their own in the international departures terminal.
Colombia’s national immigration department said the children, aged 10 and 13, had been travelling with separate groups and were left in the airport by their relatives earlier this month for reasons that have not been clarified.
Continue reading...Former junta leader back in jail hours after commando raid his lawyer says was an abduction
The former head of Guinea’s 2008 military junta has been recaptured and returned to prison hours after an apparent jailbreak led by a heavily armed commando, the army and his lawyer said.
At least two other former officials on trial alongside Moussa Dadis Camara over a 2009 massacre during his presidency were taken in the earlier operation that sparked heavy gunfire in the capital Conakry, a minister and lawyers said.
Continue reading...Only a third of countries with climate crisis plans include access to sexual, maternal and newborn health services, UNFPA report finds
Only a third of countries include sexual and reproductive health in their national plans to tackle the climate crisis, the UN has warned.
Of the 119 countries that have published plans, only 38 include access to contraception, maternal and newborn health services and just 15 make any reference to violence against women, according to a report published by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and Queen Mary University of London on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Defence chiefs demand reinstatement of president after coup, which triggered exodus of foreign nationals
Defence heads from west Africa’s regional political and security bloc have said a military intervention in junta-ruled Niger was “the last resort”, as European countries continued to evacuate foreign nationals after last week’s coup against its democratically elected president.
The 15-nation regional bloc Ecowas – the Economic Community of West African States – has threatened to use force to put down the coup in Niger after giving an ultimatum to those behind it to restore Mohamed Bazoum as president and reinstate the constitution and democratic institutions.
Continue reading...Access to PCV jabs in South Sudan, Somalia, Guinea and Chad ‘could save 40,000 children a year’
Delays in rolling out a vaccine against childhood pneumonia in four of the world’s poorest countries have been blamed for thousands of unnecessary deaths.
South Sudan, Somalia, Guinea and Chad are four of the last African nations without the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), one of the most powerful tools against pneumonia in children.
Continue reading...84-year-old who was ousted last year boards plane for Turkey to receive medical treatment
Guinean ex-leader Alpha Conde boarded a plane for Turkey on Saturday after the junta that toppled him authorised his travel abroad for medical treatment, officials said.
The 84-year-old Conte, who was ousted last year, has been allowed to travel out of respect for his “dignity and integrity” and for “humanitarian reasons”, the junta’s governing body said.
Continue reading...Female genital mutilation cannot be considered solely a ‘women’s issue’ if it is to be stamped out by 2030, say male campaigners in Guinea, Somalia, Kenya and Nigeria
There is a case from Dr Morissanda Kouyaté’s career that stays with him.
In 1983, Kouyaté, then 32, was working at a village hospital in Guinea when 12-year-old twins, Hassantou and Housseynatou, were brought in. Through wails, their relatives told Kouyaté that earlier that day, the girls had been taken into the bush to be submitted to genital mutilation. Now, they were barely conscious and bleeding heavily.
Continue reading...Across the continent, young Africans are using their unique local knowledge and bargaining power to challenge beliefs about female genital mutilation
It took courage for Ayodeji Bella to raise the subject of female genital mutilation in her rural community in southern Nigeria. She knew local chiefs were key to challenging beliefs around the practice but when Bella, who was cut at five, broached the issue with an elder from her village, she was rebuked.
“I was young and unmarried and they wouldn’t take me seriously.”
Continue reading...With Russian mercenaries invited to Mali as European forces withdraw, how worried should the west be about Russia’s increasing influence across Africa?
Even in the turbulent, conflict-wracked Sahel region of Africa, the recent military takeover in Burkina Faso was intriguing. Amid the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, the decision by neighbouring Mali’s military-led government to invite fighters from the Wagner Group, widely seen as a paramilitary network of mercenaries with Russian connections, is causing growing concern in many western capitals.
Mali’s transitional government faces a rough road to recognition after the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) announced a strengthening of economic and diplomatic sanctions in January in response to the proposal to postpone elections until at least 2026.
Continue reading...International community condemns takeover but many in impoverished west African country welcome it
Guinea’s president, Alpha Condé, is being held in military detention, according to an elite unit of the army who have led a coup condemned by the international community but welcomed by many in Guinea.
The coup leader and head of the country’s special forces, Col Mamadi Doumbouya, announced in state broadcasts on Sunday that the country’s constitution had been suspended, the government dissolved and the borders closed, with a 24-hour curfew imposed.
Continue reading...Guinea's special forces soldiers surrounded the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry, after they appeared to have ousted the country's long-serving president. Videos shared on social media showed president Alpha Condé in a room surrounded by army special forces. Residents in the Guinean capital could be seen celebrating as lines of special forces soldiers drove through the city.
Continue reading...Elite army unit says it has deposed president Alpha Condé but defence ministry says attack has been put down
An elite national army unit has announced it has seized power in Guinea and deposed the country’s president, Alpha Condé, in an attempted coup, after heavy gunfire was heard near the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry, on Sunday morning.
Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, the head of the unit and leader of the coup attempt sat drapped in the country’s flag during a brief address on the national broadcaster, Radio Television Guinea, and said the country’s parliament and constitution had been suspended and the borders shut.
Continue reading...Stigma can stop women seeking help but Hawa Bah, who was cut at eight, reaches those suffering in silence to get them the care they need
One night 14 years ago, Hawa Bah crept out of her house in Guinea and slipped into the darkness. She says she had lost count but it may have been her 14th or 15th escape attempt from an abusive marriage she was forced into with a man 37 years her senior.
Bah made her way through a maze of streets to the meeting point where a car was waiting with two strangers inside. When they took her to the airport, Bah felt her heart beating through her chest. She had not realised until then that she would be leaving her country. Aged 17, she had no belongings and no idea where she was going.
Continue reading...Ebola-like disease kills man in Guinea as WHO says it is working with local health authorities on swift response to stop spread
Health authorities in Guinea have confirmed one death from Marburg virus, a highly infectious haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, the World Health Organization says.
It marks the first time that the deadly disease has been identified in west Africa.
Continue reading...Resurgence of virus in west Africa infected 16 people and killed 12 since outbreak in February
An Ebola outbreak in Guinea that started in February, infecting 16 people and killing 12, has been declared over, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Health authorities were able to move swiftly to tackle the resurgence of the virus, which causes severe bleeding and organ failure and is spread through contact with body fluids, after lessons learned from previous outbreaks in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Continue reading...Though a hundred thousand people have died, initial predictions were far worse, giving rise to many theories on ‘the African paradox’
As Africa emerges from its second wave of Covid-19, one thing is clear: having officially clocked up more than 3.8m cases and more than 100,000 deaths, it hasn’t been spared. But the death toll is still lower than experts predicted when the first cases were reported in Egypt just over a year ago. The relative youth of African populations compared with those in the global north – while a major contributing factor – may not entirely explain the discrepancy. So what is really going on in Africa, and what does that continent’s experience of Covid-19 teach us about the disease and ourselves?
“If anyone had told me one year ago that we would have 100,000 deaths from a new infection by now, I would not have believed them,” says John Nkengasong, the Cameroonian virologist who directs the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Incidentally, he deplores the shocking normalisation of death that this pandemic has driven: “One hundred thousand deaths is a lot of deaths,” he says.
Continue reading...At least four people have died in the epidemic, causing heightened alarm across west Africa
Health officials in Guinea are racing to contain a new outbreak of Ebola that has killed at least four people and raised concerns across west Africa, which previously suffered the worst from the virus.
On Monday morning, a fourth victim died in Guinea and four others are being treated in an isolation centre, suffering vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding. At least seven of the people who contracted the virus attended the funeral of a nurse in Goueke, a town near the Liberian border, on 1 February the government said on Sunday.
Continue reading...Health minister says officials ‘really concerned’ about deaths in south-east region Nzerekore
Four people have died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the health minister said on Saturday.
Remy Lamah told AFP officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-16 epidemic – which began in Guinea – left 11,300 dead across the region.
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