American Samoa reports its first case of COVID-19

The U.S. territory’s first case was of a resident who returned from Hawaii this week, said health officials.

PAGO PAGO, AMERICAN SAMOA ― American Samoa reported its first case of coronavirus on Friday.

The U.S. territory’s acting governor and health officials said the islands’ first case of COVID-19 was of a resident who returned to America Samoa from Hawaii this week.

The infected traveler flew in on Monday, the first day of newly resumed commercial flights from Honolulu to Pago Pago. The route had been suspended since March 2020.

Officials say the resident was fully vaccinated and had traveled to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. They say the traveler tested negative for COVID-19 before boarding the flight back to American Samoa.

American Samoa requires all travelers to be vaccinated and to quarantine.

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Guinea refuses to allow deposed president to leave the country

Military says detained ex-President Alpha Conde will not be allowed to leave Guinea after the coup, defying regional pressure.

Guinea’s military leaders say they will not let deposed President Alpha Conde seek exile, after regional mediators attempted to mount pressure to secure his release following a coup earlier this month.

The statement on Friday came after the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS met Colonel Mamady Doumbouya in Conakry.

“We will not yield to any pressure,” military leaders said following the conclusion of the talks. “Conde is and will remain in Guinea.”

The chairman of ECOWAS, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, and the president of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, met Doumbouya, the coup leader and head of a special forces unit in the military, and visited Conde, who has been detained since being toppled on September 5 after more than 10 years in power.

Akufo-Addo said the delegation had “a very frank, fraternal discussion” with Doumbouya and his associates.

“I think that ECOWAS and Guinea are going to do well together,” he said, adding that they had also been able to hold a fruitful meeting with Conde.

The bloc agreed on targeted sanctions on Thursday after Guinea’s military leaders failed to meet its demands. ECOWAS has called for Conde’s immediate release and for a swift transition of power, with elections held within six months.

Soldiers behind the coup say they are holding consultations with various public figures, groups and business leaders in the country to map a framework for the transition. They claim to have overthrown Conde because of concerns about poverty and corruption, and because he was serving a third term only after altering the constitution to permit it.

The adopted sanctions include the freezing of the financial assets and the imposition of travel bans on Guinea’s military leaders and their relatives.

West and Central Africa has seen four coups since last year. The political upheaval has intensified concerns about a backslide towards military rule in a resource-rich but poverty-stricken region.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Nigeria: Miyetti Allah Chairman dies in the hands of kidnappers – Official

Miyetti Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) has announced the death of Alhaji Abubakar Abdullahi, also known as Danbardi, the association’s Chairman in Lere Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

The association announced this in a statement by its National Secretary, Othman Ngelzarma, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday, in Abuja, saying that the deceased, aged 58, was killed by kidnappers on Friday.

“The death of Abubakar brings to five the number of MACBAN officials killed either by bandits, kidnappers or cattle rustlers this year across the country”, the statement said.

Ngelzarma stated that Abdullahi’s lifeless body was found by the roadside on Friday, after being kidnapped from his home in Lere on Sept. 16 and ransom paid.

“Alhaji Abubakar, aged 58 was kidnapped on the 16th of September and after paying ransom his dead body was found by the roadside on Friday, September 17, on the outskirts of Lere town.

“While we condole with the family of the deceased, the Kaduna State Chapter of MACBAN, we call on the security agencies to properly investigate this and a lot of other dastardly acts across the country and bring the culprits to justice,” Ngelzarma said.

The MACBAN national secretary decried the increasing level of insecurity faced by members of the association nationwide, either from rampaging bandits or kidnappers.He said: “the challenge is making it almost impossible for our members to conduct their businesses in peace.

“This is partly responsible for the escalating cost of livestock and livestock products.”If the insecurity continues, it might collapse the livestock industry in the country.

“We call on the Federal Government to, therefore, ensure that the new policies geared towards improved livestock production are properly implemented”, he added.

(NAN)

Read the original article on Vanguard.

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Towards Africa’s first mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub

Brazzaville — The World Health Organization (WHO), a South African consortium and partners from COVAX, are working to set-up a technology transfer hub for mRNA vaccines in South Africa to help boost and scale up vaccine production in Africa.

The initiative marks “a major advance in efforts to build vaccine development and manufacturing capacity that will put Africa on a path to self-determination,” said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, at the launch of the initiative in June.

Yet making mRNA vaccines is a complex business, there are many steps to take before safe and effective mRNA vaccines can be made in Africa. Dr Bartholomew Dicky Akanmori, Regional Adviser for Vaccine Research and Regulation with  the WHO Regional Office for Africa, explains.

What is the technology transfer hub?  

The technology transfer hub in South Africa will teach African manufacturers how to make mRNA vaccines, like the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, here in Africa.

Foreign manufacturers will share techniques with local institutions and WHO and partners will bring in production know-how, quality control and will assist with the necessary licenses.

There will be a training centre with all necessary equipment in place for African manufacturers to learn. The manufacturers will pay for their staff to receive training, which must be completed before they can start production.

Several partners have signed up take part, including the Medicines Patent Pool, Afrigen Biologics, the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of Southern Africa, the South African Medical Research Council and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hubs like this exist all over world. For example, scientists at Oxford University shared their techniques with AstraZeneca, which then made the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. The hubs show producers the formulas needed to make quality, safe and effective vaccines.

Can’t African countries already manufacture vaccines? 

The vaccines being made in Africa, like those for yellow fever or tetanus, use a simple technology in which scientists take the bacteria, grow the toxin from the bacteria, and then make it incapable of acting.

New technologies are needed to make mRNA vaccines. It is far more complex process and there is no room for error, so the correct transfer of knowledge is absolutely crucial. This is why we need technology transfer hubs.

When will mRNA COVID-19 vaccines be made in Africa? 

It’s hard to say. We started working to set up the hub in South Africa earlier this year and this work is still going on. It depends on several factors, including funding, a willingness to transfer technologies and the ability of local institutions to absorb knowledge.

However, the assumption is that knowledge transfer will move faster than we’ve seen before, in the same way that COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time.

Once all the elements are together, we expect the training to take at least six months.

What is the long-term vision for vaccine manufacturing in Africa?  

The long-term plan is self-sufficiency, for a future where Africa makes enough vaccines for its own people, but right now Africa imports around 90% of its vaccines.

The technology transfer hub will help to change this, helping African manufacturers to move to more advanced levels of production where they can make mRNA vaccines from start to finish without any outside support.

Many other vaccines use the same mRNA technology that we’ll be transferring, such as vaccines against Ebola, Lassa Fever and Marburg, and eventually this mRNA technology could even be used to produce vaccines against HIV or tuberculosis.

The hub has a research and development arm, which can identify new ways to use this technology. There are also plans to establish a second hub in another African country.

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