Global Online Survey: COVID-19 Impacts on Education and the Need for Distance Education/Digital Solutions

 Dear All,  

The AU/CIEFFA, in close collaboration with the Stockholm University and its international partners, is launching a Global Online Survey on COVID-19 Impacts on Education and Needs for Distance Education and Digital solutions. 

This constitutes an unique opportunity to have regional, national, global, and local data and information on the COVID-19 Impacts on Education and Needs for Distance Education and Digital Solutions. It will only take 3 to 5 minutes of your time. As such, it will bring the VOICES of the education community of Africa to mitigate the DIVIDE which is crucial for implementing SDGs n° 4. And the Agenda 2063. 

Please participate and fill in this global questionnaire either in English or French before 15th April 2021. Once filled, kindly share with as many member of your Education networks. 

English version link:    

https://survey.su.se/Survey/40076/en

French version link: 

https://survey.su.se/Survey/39990/en 

Thank you

Cher/chère,  

L’UA/CIEFFA, en étroite collaboration avec l'Université de Stockholm et ses partenaires internationaux, voudrait mener l’enquête globale en ligne sur les impacts du COVID-19 sur l'éducation et les besoins dans l'enseignement à distance ainsi que les solutions numériques. 

Cette occasion opportune, qui ne vous prendra que de 3 à 5 minutes de votre temps, permettra de disposer d’une base de données et d'informations les impacts de COVID-19 sur l'éducation et les besoins en matière d'enseignement à distance et de solutions numériques aux niveaux local, national, régional, et mondiale.  Ainsi, vous pourrez faire entendre la voix de la communauté éducative africaine afin d’atténuer toutes les inégalités pour la réalisation de l’Agenda 2063 et SDG n°4. 

Veuillez participer et remplir le questionnaire global avant le 15 Avril 2021 en anglais ou en français aux liens ci-dessous. Une fois rempli, nous vous prions de bien vouloir partager le lien avec les membres de vos réseaux d’éducation. 

Lien de la version en Anglais : https://survey.su.se/Survey/40076/en

Lien de la version en Français : https://survey.su.se/Survey/39990/en

Merci

BASKETBALL: ANGOLA LOSE TO KENYA

 The senior male national team of basketball lost last Saturday to Kenya by 74-73 in the second and last window of the qualifying tournament to Afrobasket 2021 that is taking place in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

This second round match was decided in the last second by a Taylor Ongwae throw over the final whistle ensuring the victory of the Kenyan by one point of difference after losing in the break.

The throw was so dubious that the referees were forced to use the television footage to make sure the launch was made before the match was over.

Alexandre Jungo with 19 points was the top scorer of the match followed by the Kenyan Taylor Ongwae with 16 points.

However, in the first window the Angolan team beat Kenya by 83-66.

In addition to the defeat, Angola with eight points ranked second in group B which already qualified with fewer points than the leaders Senegal ahead of Kenya with seven points and Mozambique with five.

However, the national team close their participation in the race this Sunday facing Senegal at 20h00 but with no chances to get the first place of the group B, while Kenya face Mozambique.

The Afrobasket2021 will take place from 25 August to 5 September in Kigali (Rwanda). The first three team of each group have already qualified.

Results of group B

Angola - Kenya (74-73)

Mozambique - Senegal (43-84)

Ranking

1st Senegal (10 points) qualified.

2nd Angola (08) qualified.

3rd Kenya (07) qualified.

4th Mozambique (05) qualified.

COVID-19: ANGOLA REGISTERS 20 NEW INFECTIONS AND 8 RECOVERIES

 Twenty new infections, eight recovered and a death are the data of the Covid-19 incidence in the last 24 hours in Angola.

Of the new infections, according to the health bulletin, 17 were diagnosed in Luanda, 2 in Namibe and 1 in Huíla Province.

The new patients’ ages vary from 5 to 86 years old, 13 are male and 7 female.

The death involves an 83-year-old Angolan citizen in the central province of Huambo.

Of those recovered, 7 live in the province of Zaire and 1 in Namibe.

 

The general statistics indicate 20, 519 positive cases, 1,007 of which are active, 499 deaths and 19, 013 recovered.

Of the diseased, 5 are in critical conditions, 9 serious, 41 moderate, 51 mild and 901 asymptomatic.

The labs have processed, up to now, 973 samples by RT-PCR.

 

In treatment centers, 106 patients are being monitored, 39 are in institutional quarantine and 731 contacts of positive cases are under medical surveillance.

Tanzania’s president admits country has COVID-19 problem

 

The president of Tanzania has urged its citizens to take preventive measures against the coronavirus after downplaying the disease for months and claiming it had been defeated by prayers.

Speaking during a Sunday church mass in the capital Dodoma, President John Magufuli urged citizens of the East African country to take precautions and wear face masks – but only locally made ones.

Over the course of the pandemic, Magufuli has expressed wariness about foreign-made goods, including COVID vaccines.

Church members wait for worshippers to take their temperature during a Palm Sunday mass in Dar-es-Salaam [File: Ericky Noniphace/AFP]

A few hours later, the health ministry issued a statement also calling on people to wear face masks and wash their hands to prevent COVID-19 infections, according to local media.The president’s comments came a day after the World Health Organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Tanzania to take “robust action” to tackle the outbreak in the country as “the situation remains very concerning”.

The call for action came after a number of Tanzanians travelling to neighbouring countries and beyond tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a statement issued by the WHO.

Others recently expressing concern include the United States and the local Catholic church.

The country of 60 million people mourned the death of one of its highest-profile politicians, the vice president of the semi-autonomous island region of Zanzibar, whose infection with COVID had been announced by his political party. Magufuli’s chief secretary also died in recent days, though the cause was not revealed.

Magufuli, speaking at the chief secretary’s funeral in a nationally televised broadcast on Friday, had urged the nation to participate in three days of prayer for unspecified “respiratory” illnesses that had become a challenge to the country.

Tanzania has not updated its number of coronavirus infections since April as the president has insisted COVID-19 had been defeated.

Tanzania’s official number of coronavirus infections remains at just 509, but residents report many people have become ill with breathing difficulties and hospitals have seen a rise in patients diagnosed with “pneumonia”.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Libya’s powerful interior minister survives assassination attempt

 Fathi Bashagha was returning from a meeting outside Tripoli when his convoy came under fire by unidentified gunmen.

Libya’s powerful interior minister survived an assassination attempt after his motorcade came under fire outside the capital, sources close to him have told Al Jazeera.

Fathi Bashagha had finished a meeting on Sunday with the chairman of the national oil corporation and was returning to Tripoli, the seat of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), when his convoy came under attack by unidentified gunmen.

The 58-year-old escaped unharmed, a source said. One of the assailants was killed in the attack while two others were arrested.

Bashagha has in recent months drawn the ire of several armed groups in Tripoli after announcing plans to demobilise militias and reintegrate them into the formal security apparatus.

Libya has been mired in conflict since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

The North African country, a significant oil producer, has been divided between the GNA and a rival administration in the east, both of whom are supported by an array of local and international actors.

Bashagha, who has served as the interior minister of the UN-recognised GNA since October 2018, was seen as a favourite to succeed the last head, Fayez al-Sarraj.

That position finally went to Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, a 61-year-old businessman from Misrata who was elected as prime minister by Libyan delegates from both sides at the UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva last month.

The new interim government is tasked with leading the country through elections, scheduled for December.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA

Seven election officials killed in landmine blast as Niger votes

 Seven members of Niger’s electoral commission (CENI) have been killed during the country’s presidential election runoff when their vehicle hit a mine and exploded in the troubled western region of Tillaberi.

The country regularly suffers attacks by armed groups and had increased to protect Sunday’s poll, in which the governing party candidate, Mohamed Bazoum, is facing former President Mahamane Ousmane.

A vehicle belonging to CENI and carrying election workers to their polling stations hit a mine in the rural commune of Dargol in the southwest, said Harouna Mounkaila, vice president of the commission’s local branch.

“They were leaving to drop off the ballot boxes and the members of the polling station,” Moukaila told Reuters news agency, adding that three other workers were seriously wounded.

Tillaberi is in the tri-border area of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali where armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) have strengthened their foothold, launching frequent attacks and making swathes of the western portion of the Sahel ungovernable.

The region’s government confirmed the death toll following Sunday’s explosion.

“I had the news around midday [11:00 GMT] that there were seven killed when the vehicle blew up on a mine,” Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella told AFP news agency.

“They are the heads of polling stations and their secretaries” recruited by the commission, Katiella added.

Thousands of soldiers were deployed nationwide for the vote, set to usher in a peaceful handover between elected presidents, a first since Niger’s independence from France in 1960.

Outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou’s decision to voluntarily step down after two five-year terms was welcomed in a region where many leaders have tried to cling to power.

“I’m proud to be the first democratically elected president in our history to be able to pass the baton to another democratically elected president,” Issoufou said as he voted at city hall in the capital, Niamey.

Sixty-one-year-old Bazoum, Issoufou’s right-hand man and anointed heir, is widely seen as the favourite after securing 39.3 percent of ballots in the first round of voting on December 27. Ousmane, 71 – who became the country’s first democratically elected president in 1993, only to be toppled in a coup three years later – had garnered 16.9 percent.

Polling stations were scheduled to close at 7pm (18:00 GMT).

SOURCE : NEWS AGENCIES

COVID-19: Hotels in Ghana still suffering-Association

 Dr. Edward Ackah Nyamike, President, Ghana Hotels Association, says hotels are yet to recover from the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the industry.

He said though a few hotels were resuming operation after the lockdown, they were struggling and “suffering.”

Dr. Nyamike, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said most hotels closed down during the lockdown with a few struggling ones needing urgent support to survive.

He said despite low patronage, the facilities had to pay workers and maintain equipment.

“Most hotel managements are suffering due to insufficient finances. There is low patronage of services, but they still have to pay their workers with loans, which is also another financial burden,” he emphasized.

Dr. Nyamike said the Association was engaging stakeholders for a business-friendly environment to facilitate the operations of members.

He, therefore, appealed to the government to allocate some amount of money to the industry to “bring it back to live.”

Dr. Nyamike said the Association was working on the establishment of a credit union to assist members in difficult times and called for the support of all stakeholders.

He said the Association was also seeking to engage members in digital training on technicalities relating to housekeeping, cost management, and marketing to attract domestic tourists and improve service delivery.

Mr. Clement Quartey, Manager, Mascot Hotel, in Accra, bemoaned low patronage due to the pandemic, which consequently led to the laying-off of some of his workers.

He said they shut down the restaurant, pool, gym, and conference, and that the only services rendered currently were the take-away packaging and room services.

Mr. Quartey said patronage of services was extremely low, almost leading to the closure of the hotel last year.

He said the celebration of Valentine’s Day had not had any positive impact on the business as expected.

He said they were adhering to the COVID-19 protocols strictly and “Hope that the cases will come down so that business will also bounce back,” he said.

GNA

Organ Transplant Patient Dies After Receiving COVID-Infected Lungs

 The donor initially tested negative for the coronavirus. Now, doctors are calling for more thorough testing to be performed ahead of transplants.

A Michigan woman contracted COVID-19 and died last fall after receiving a double-lung transplant, doctors said. The organs were infected with the coronavirus, even though the donor initially tested negative and showed no signs of illness.

It appears to be the first confirmed U.S. case of donor-to-recipient transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study published earlier this month in the American Journal of Transplantation.

“We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we’d had a positive Covid test,” Dr. Daniel Kaul, director of Michigan Medicine’s transplant infectious disease service and a co-author of the study, told Kaiser Health News. “All the screening that we normally do and are able to do, we did.”

Throat and nose samples collected from the donor, a woman who died after suffering a severe brain injury in a car accident, had tested negative for the virus. Such samples are routinely collected from both organ donors and recipients and tested for infection.

The donor had not traveled recently and did not have any recent fever, cough, headache or diarrhea, the donor’s family told doctors. It’s unknown whether the donor had any recent exposure to someone known or suspected to be infected.

The woman who received the transplant was a chronic obstructive lung disease patient at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. She tested negative for COVID-19 several hours before the transplant procedure.

Three days after the surgery, the patient developed worsening fever, low blood pressure and respiratory problems. Doctors decided to test samples collected from the patient’s nose and throat as well as her lower respiratory system for COVID-19 after she developed septic shock and heart function problems. The nose and throat sample came back negative but the lower respiratory sample tested positive.

Doctors then tested a sample they had saved from the donor’s lower respiratory tract. It tested positive for the virus.

The patient’s condition continued to worsen for the next several weeks. She experienced multisystem organ failure and developed worsening respiratory distress. She was treated with the antiviral drug remdesivir and received convalescent plasma on two occasions, but her condition continued to decline.

She died two months after receiving the double-lung transplant.

The surgeon who performed the lung transplant tested positive for COVID-19 four days after the transplant procedure. He fell ill but later recovered. Ten other members of the transplant team tested negative for the virus.

Genetic screening showed the transplant recipient and surgeon were extremely likely to have been infected by the donor lungs.

Nearly 40,000 transplants were performed in the U.S. in 2020, suggesting this type of COVID-19 transmission is exceedingly rare. It seems unlikely for non-lung donors ― those donating organs such as kidneys, hearts and livers ― to transmit the virus even if they have it, Kaul said.

Still, the case has prompted doctors to call for more thorough testing of donors.

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which oversees transplants in the U.S., doesn’t require routine COVID-19 testing of donors. The study’s findings suggest the need for more extensive testing before transplants, especially in areas with high infection rates, Kaul told Kaiser Health News.

What’s more, health care workers present during the transplant procedure in this case were not required to wear N95 masks and eye protection because both the donor and recipient had tested negative for COVID-19. The doctors who authored this study said such health care workers should consider wearing both N95 masks and eye protection moving forward even if donors and recipients test negative.

Source: Huffpost

Italy’s coastguard searches for survivors after migrant shipwreck

 So far 45 people have been rescued, while five to 10 others are believed to be missing off Lampedusa’s southern coast.

The Italian coastguard has launched a rescue operation after a boat carrying at least 50 migrants and refugees capsized overnight off the coast of Lampedusa.

The coastguard said on Saturday the incident took place 15 nautical miles (28km) off the southern coast of the Sicilian island as emergency crews were trying to bring the people on board its boat.

A spokesperson said 45 people have been rescued so far and a helicopter has been deployed to help find survivors.

Citing witnesses’ testimonies, the coastguard said five to 10 people were believed to be missing.

According to the latest data gathered by the interior ministry, 2,931 migrants reached Italy this year by boat compared with the 2,065 that arrived during the same period last year.

Lampedusa is one of the first points of entry for migrants trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Africa.

The UNHCR described the central Mediterranean as the most dangerous migration route worldwide – one in six people who depart the shores of North Africa dies.

Since the beginning of this year, 161 migrants have lost their lives attempting the perilous journey, and at least 20,000 migrants have died attempting the Mediterranean since 2014, according to data gathered by the International Organisation for Migration.

After deaths, WHO urges Tanzania to share COVID data, take action

 The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged Tanzania’s authorities to take “robust action” against the coronavirus pandemic amid increasing warnings that the country is witnessing a deadly resurgence in infections.

President John Magufuli has long played down the virus, repeatedly claiming that Tanzania defeated COVID-19 with God’s help and refusing to take tough measures to curb its spread.

But a recent spate of deaths attributed to pneumonia has struck both members of the public and government officials. On Friday, after months of denial, Magufuli appeared to admit the coronavirus was circulating in Tanzania, a country of some 60 million people.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a number of Tanzanians travelling to neighbouring countries and beyond have tested positive for the coronavirus.

“This underscores the need for Tanzania to take robust action both to safeguard their own people and protect populations in these countries and beyond,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

Tedros said he had urged Tanzania in late January to take measures against the pandemic and to prepare for vaccinations.

“Since then I have spoken with several authorities in Tanzania but WHO is yet to receive any information regarding what measures Tanzania is taking to respond to the pandemic.

“This situation remains very concerning. I renew my call for Tanzania to start reporting COVID-19 cases and share data.

“I also call on Tanzania to implement the public health measures that we know work in breaking the chains of transmission, and to prepare for vaccination.”

‘Let’s be careful’

The country last gave case figures in April 2020, reporting 509 infections.

At the same time, Magufuli revealed he had secretly had a variety of items tested for the virus – of which a papaya, quail and a goat apparently tested positive. He has also questioned COVID-19 vaccines without offering evidence.

On Wednesday, the vice president of semi-autonomous Zanzibar, Seif Sharif Hamad, died after his opposition party admitted he had contracted coronavirus.

The head of the civil service, John Kijazi, also died on Wednesday.

The cause of death has not been revealed. But Magufuli brought up COVID-19 at his funeral.

“When this respiratory disease erupted last year, we won because we put God first and took other measures. I’m sure we will win again if we do so this time around,” he said.

However, dissent is mounting within the country to the government’s position on the pandemic.

On Saturday, the Tanzania Law Society became the first professional body to call on the government to openly recognise the virus and take adequate measures.

On Sunday, Magufuli revealed that some of his aides and family members had contracted COVID-19 but recovered, and offered some lukewarm support for the use of masks.

“The government has not banned use of masks but some of these are not safe at all … let’s be careful,” he said after a service in a Dar-es-Salaam church.

“Let us all depend on God as we also take other preventive measures. I put God first and that is why I do not wear a mask.”

The health ministry in a statement on Sunday called on citizens to “continue to believe in God” and also respect preventive measures, including mask-wearing.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES