Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee-Central Government has noted a possibility of the tax payer losing 1.59 billion Shillings in unutilized COVID-19 equipment purchased by the disbanded Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The equipment identified as the Dr Oligo DNA Synthesizer Machine was procured for …
Read More »Uganda stranded with 13.4 million unutilized COVID-19 vaccines
Negative perceptions prevent Ugandans from taking up COVID-19 vaccines Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health still has 13.4 million unutilized COVID-19 vaccines, the Public Accounts Committee – PAC Central Government has learned. The Health Ministry Permanent Secretary, Dr. Diana Atwine, says that the country risks losing huge sums of …
Read More »BANKS: We have failed to identify SMEs for COVID-19 relief fund
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Leaders in the banking industry say that they have failed to identify people who qualify for the government’s COVID-19 relief fund meant for small and medium enterprises. It comes a few days after the Bank of Uganda revealed that only Shillings 6 billion out of …
Read More »COVID-19 rescue facility for MSMEs performing miserably
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Bank of Uganda (BOU) has admitted that a package introduced to rescue small and micro enterprises from the effects of COVID-19, has hardly worked, almost one and a half years later. According to information from the Bank, just six billion shillings has been …
Read More »Lufthansa returns to profits after COVID-19 slump
Berlin, Germany | Xinhua | After two consecutive years of losses, Germany’s flagship airline Lufthansa said on Friday it had once again made a profit in 2022, as international air traffic recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to “strong increase in demand for air travel over the course of the year,” the …
Read More »WHO issues case definition for post COVID-19 condition in children
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new clinical case definition for post-COVID-19 condition or ‘long COVID’ in children and adolescents. According to the latest statement by the organization, children and adolescents are more likely to have few or no symptoms or develop mild …
Read More »How to transform African agriculture
It requires understanding of challenges, clear vision for meeting them, and commitment to solutions COMMENT | Safia Boly and Omid Kassiri | The COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by supply-chain disruptions and surging inflation, has highlighted the fragilities of Africa’s food systems, leading to a 60% increase in hunger across the continent in 2020 …
Read More »COVID-19 still int’l health emergency: WHO
Geneva, Switzerland | Xinhua | The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that the COVID-19 pandemic still constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the WHO’s highest alert level. The announcement came amid the recent increase of weekly reported deaths worldwide. After its quarterly assessment meeting on the …
Read More »South Sudan launches COVID-19 vaccination drive to boost coverage
Juba, South Sudan | Xinhua | South Sudan, the World Bank, and two UN agencies on Saturday kicked off a COVID-19 vaccine campaign following the arrival of 3.9 million vaccine doses into the country. Yolanda Awel Deng, Minister of Health of South Sudan said vaccination coverage remains low in the country and …
Read More »Namibia blames COVID-19 for poor 2022 high school academic results
Windhoek, Namibia | Xinhua | COVID-19 is blamed as one of the causes of the poor results of the 2022 senior secondary certificate ordinary level and senior secondary certificate advanced subsidiary in Namibia due to the loss of face-to-face teaching and learning time at the pandemic’s peak. Out of more than 38,000 …
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