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Mail & Guardian
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Vaccines are not just medicine. They are mirrors. They show us who we are, what we value and whose lives we’re willing to protect.
AFRICAN VACCINATION

Vaccines: The US is endangering children while Africa leads the way

Countries on the continent are not waiting to be saved, they are paving the way with community-led, astute, innovative and independent immunisation programmes

  • Tian Johnson
11 min read
Up to one in five people can get long COVID — a condition in which someone keeps on feeling ill for months after their initial symptoms have cleared up. (Paul Botes)
ACCESSIBLE HEALTHCARE

The Covid pandemic has exacerbated weaknesses in health systems, particularly in poor countries

Strategic investments in health care for all are needed to ensure safe births, treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, measles, pneumonia and diarrhoea, and children are vaccinated

  • Carin Jämtin
  • Stefan Swartling Peterson
6 min read
The next three to five years will require the continent to ensure there is sustainable business beyond Covid-19.
AFRICAN SOCIETY FOR PAEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Drop in child vaccinations a danger

There are fears of a resurgence in preventable childhood diseases in the face of poor immunisation data

  • Chris Bateman
9 min read
The virus takes its name from the Ebola River, near the site of one of the first recorded outbreaks in what is now the DRC, in 1976.
CHOLERA

The coping mechanisms the DRC is putting in place as it faces Ebola, measles and Covid-19

The DRC has systematically gone about strengthening health infrastructure, engaging the community and doing better research

  • Yap Boum
5 min read
People’s temperature are being measured at a border between Abuja and the Nasarawa State on March 30 2020, after Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari called for a lockdown to limit the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. – Over 20 million Nigerians on Monday scrambled to prepare for lockdown in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest city Lagos and the capital Abuja, as the continent struggled to curb the spread of the coronavirus. President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a two-week “cessation of all movements” in the key cities in a bid to ward off an explosion of cases in Africa’s most populous country. (Photo by Kola Sulaimon/AFP via Getty Images)
AFRICA

Three months in, Covid-19 poses triple threats in Africa

Health, debt and hunger are huge threats to the continent’s stability

  • Edwin Ikhuoria
5 min read
The work of older women in Africa is invisible and unpaid for, yet it holds families and communities together. Photo: File
AFRICA

The DRC’s response to Covid-19 must be tailored to local context

Immunisation and other preventative programmes for malaria, cholera, measles and malnutrition, which kill children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, must continue

  • Edouard Beigbeder
5 min read
(John McCann/M&G)
FRANCE

Healthcare’s crucial tool is trust

A new survey reveals that most people know little about science and this negatively affects preventative medicine

  • Jeremy Farrar
4 min read
There were about 300 people aboard the ship, according to Saint Lucia authorities. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY

Curaçao vows to stop measles spreading from Scientology ship

Curacao said it would do what was needed to prevent measles spreading from a Scientology cruise ship, after a crew member came down with the disease

  • Agency
2 min read
A sign warns people of measles in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Williamsburg, two days after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency. (Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
BILL DE BLASIO

US health officials seek to stem measles outbreaks traced to Israel, Ukraine

A total of 555 cases of measles have been recorded in the United States since January 1, most of them in New York and Clark County in Washington state

  • Ivan Couronne
4 min read
Pneumonia kills more than 1.3-million children a year. But with this vaccine two out of every three children under five are immunised against pneumonia. (Eduardo Munoz, Reuters)
CHILDREN

Is your child vaccinated against measles? Here’s why they might need a booster shot

Even if your child has been vaccinated, booster shots provide an extra layer of protection.

  • Laura Lopez Gonzalez
  • Dylan Bush
1 min read
MEASLES

‘There is hope this evil illness will not befall us again’

The residents of a Nigerian village had no health services, save for traditional methods, to treat those with a fever and a rash.

  • Staff Reporter
7 min read
There were about 300 people aboard the ship, according to Saint Lucia authorities. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
AFP

Roll over Ebola: measles is the deadly new threat

A consequence of the Ebola epidemic is a steep drop in measles vaccinations as overburdened hospitals are unable to keep up.

  • Staff Reporter
4 min read
There were about 300 people aboard the ship, according to Saint Lucia authorities. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
BHEKISISA TEAM

Measles threat puts Ebola to shame

The disease is outfoxing prevention efforts, thanks in part to vaccination myths.

  • Bhekisisa Team
7 min read
MEASLES

Measles surges in UK years after vaccine scare

A vaccine scare more than a decade ago is causing a growing epidemic of measles, a contagious disease.

  • Maria Cheng
4 min read
Truth serum: The M&G Bhekisisa centre aims to avoid disseminating myths.
ARV

Comment: Ignorant reporting can be lethal

As the fallout regarding misinformation about vaccines and antiretrovirals shows, words can kill.

  • Mia Malan
6 min read
FLU VACCINE

UN health chief raises concern over vaccine ‘mistrust’

WHO chief warned on Monday that the health community needed to tackle strong and "worrisome" public mistrust of vaccines.

  • Staff Reporter
2 min read
MEASLES

UN: Measles outbreak kills more than 700 in Africa

A recent measles outbreak in Eastern and Southern Africa has killed more than 700 people, the UN said on Friday.

  • Staff Reporter
1 min read