Geneva, Switzerland | Xinhua | The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Thursday an initiative to vaccinate 40 percent of the population of every country against COVID-19 by the end of 2021 and 70 percent by mid-2022, by prioritizing vaccine delivery to low-income countries, particularly those in Africa. “Today, WHO is …
Read More »Uganda receives 196,000 doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccine
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda has received 196,800 doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. This is the first batch of the nine million doses of the single-shot vaccine procured by the government. The vaccines were delivered aboard Brussels Airlines, which torched down at Entebbe International Airport on Thursday …
Read More »Union to mobilize nurses to strike over Covid-19 allowances
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda Nurses and Midwives Union-UNMU has threatened to mobilize nurses involved in the COVID-19 vaccination exercise to lay down their tools unless they are paid their allowances. While the nurses are entitled to a daily allowance of Shillings 5000, some of the nurses interviewed by …
Read More »Regaining smell loss after COVID-19
Could vitamin A help? Researchers at the University of East Anglia and James Paget University Hospital are launching a new project to see whether Vitamin A could help people regain their sense of smell after viral infections including COVID-19. Smell loss is a common symptom of COVID-19, but even before …
Read More »Soroti authorities suspend prayers over surging Covid-19 cases
Soroti, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Soroti district Covid-19 taskforce has suspended all church-related activities in Asuret sub county for a month following the increasing cases of Covid-19. Asuret sub county registered 173 cases of Covid-19 between September 22 and October 1, 2021. This is almost a quarter of the …
Read More »Covax misses its 2021 target
What’s gone wrong in the fight against vaccine nationalism and hoarding of vaccines by rich countries? | RORY HORNER | The latest supply forecast for Covax – the programme for sharing COVID-19 vaccines around the world – suggests that accelerating vaccination in low-income countries looks unlikely. Covax estimates it will …
Read More »Byanyima unpacks the knock-on effects of COVID-19 on HIV/AIDS
The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened global inequities. The world’s poor have borne the brunt of national lockdowns and will struggle to recover and poorer countries have been unable to rollout comprehensive vaccination campaigns because of a grossly unequal distribution of vaccines. On top of this COVID-19 has also derailed progress …
Read More »Loopholes in Entebbe testing identified, MOH to look at manifests
Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Diana Atwine says that the ministry will compare data of arriving passengers tested at the government laboratory with the passenger manifests provided by airlines to look out for people who skip the mandatory COVID-19 testing …
Read More »Elegu border records sharp rise in Covid-19 cases
Amuru, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Elegu port health in Amuru district has recorded a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 positive cases among travelers being tested at the Uganda South Sudan border. Last month, out of the 2,594 samples tested by the health team, 92 people mostly travelers and …
Read More »Can Ugandans tax burden get any worse?
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | How does it matter that the tax on an individual’s contributions to the National Social Security Fund is deferred to the time of withdrawal of the benefits, as had earlier been proposed by the NSSF? The media reports that the government plans to tax the …
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