Browsing: CORONAVIRUS

Zimbabwe is on high alert for COVID-19 following reports that neighbouring Botswana has identified new Omicron sub-variants of the killer virus over the past month, a senior health official said on Tuesday.

South Africa’s coronavirus infections are on the rise again, with the country reportedly entering another wave of the pandemic, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Senior Researcher, Dr Ridhwaan Suliman, has said.

Two scientists in Botswana and South Africa have won the 2022 German Africa Award for their role in identifying the deadly COVID-19 Omicron variant that caused a worldwide stir at the end of 2021.

Botswana has lifted the mandatory wearing of masks and other remaining COVID-19 restrictions as the government announced a sharp decline in infections.

South Africa has agreed to deliver over of two million Covid-19 doses to fellow African countries, with a 79,200 batch of the vaccines to be handed over to Liberia on Friday, Deputy International Relations and Cooperation Minister Candith Mashego-Dlamini said on Wednesday.

South Africans should brace themselves for a new wave of the Covid-19 pandemic due to their low vaccination rate for the disease, virologist Barry Schoub warned on Monday.

The Zimbabwe government has scrapped the mandatory wearing of face masks in public outdoor places by fully vaccinated individuals, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has embarked on a mass COVID-19 vaccination drive in Namibia amid indications that just over a quarter of the country’s adult population has been fully vaccinated.

The Serum Institute of India has provided US$2.5 million to the African Union’s Covid-19 Commission to bolster its investment into an African health workforce, the South African presidency said on Wednesday.

There were 109 new coronavirus cases on Monday, bringing the total number of recorded infections to 4,002,981 since the disease broke out in the country in March 2020, a health agency said on Tuesday.