April 12, 2023
Africa: Why Focusing On Covid Deaths Undercounts the Health Harms of the Pandemic - New Research
More than three years into the COVID pandemic, both the virus and the measures taken to control its spread have affected people's lives across the globe. But how can we fully… Read more »
March 29, 2023
Africa: Long Covid Puts Some People At Higher Risk of Heart Disease - They Need Better Long-Term Monitoring
Lasting damage to the heart and brain is an aspect of long COVID that should receive much more attention than it has so far. We have sufficient evidence now to call for ongoing… Read more »
March 24, 2023
Africa: Covid Testing Led to New Techniques of Disease Diagnosis - Progress Mustn't Stop Now
In March 2020, weeks before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivered a speech in which he… Read more »
March 23, 2023
Africa: China's Only Now Revealed Crucial Covid-19 Origins Data. Earlier Disclosure May Have Saved Us 3 Years of Political Argy-Bargy
Once more, we're talking about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Read more »
March 22, 2023
Africa: Covid Origins Debate - What to Make of New Findings Linking the Virus to Raccoon Dogs
The origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, has long been a topic of heated debate. While many believe SARS-CoV-2 spread to humans from an animal at Wuhan's Huanan… Read more »
March 20, 2023
Africa: Air Pollution Can Increase the Risk of Covid Infection and Severe Disease #AfricaClimateCrisis
The early part of the COVID pandemic led to a significant reduction in air pollution in many parts of the world. With lockdowns, travel restrictions and decreased economic… Read more »
March 19, 2023
Africa: The Limits of Expert Judgment - Lessons From Social Science Forecasting During the Pandemic
Imagine being a policymaker at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. You have to decide which actions to recommend, how much risk to tolerate and what sacrifices to ask your… Read more »
March 15, 2023
Africa: Looting and Decay - How The Pandemic Wrought Real Damage to African Heritage
The Covid-19 pandemic will long be remembered for the lockdowns it imposed and the millions of lives it stole, particularly among the elderly. A recent Unesco report shows that it… Read more »
March 16, 2023
South Africa: Long Covid - What We Know About How the Condition Affects Mental Health
Many people have persistent symptoms after recovering from COVID, a condition termed "long COVID". The UK's Office for National Statistics estimates 1.8 million people in the UK… Read more »
March 14, 2023
Equatorial Guinea: Covid, Bird Flu, Mpox - a Virologist On Why We're Seeing So Many Viruses Emerge
From the widespread outbreak of mpox (formerly called monkeypox) in 2022, to the evolving bird flu situation, to recent cases of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, COVID isn't… Read more »
March 13, 2023
Africa: What the Research Shows About Risks of Myocarditis From Covid Vaccines Versus Risks of Heart Damage From Covid
Soon after the first COVID-19 vaccines appeared in 2021, reports of rare cases of heart inflammation, or myocarditis, began to surface. Read more »
March 10, 2023
Africa: Three Years On, The Covid Pandemic May Never End - But The Public Health Impact Is Becoming More Manageable
Three years ago, on March 11 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus first formally described COVID-19 as a pandemic. Read more »
March 09, 2023
Africa: Suicide Attempts Rose Among Children and Adolescents During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Especially for Girls
Will the kids be alright? There was hope that children and adolescents would "bounce back" as the pandemic progressed, but sadly, the data suggest otherwise. Read more »
March 08, 2023
Africa: Disputes Over Covid's Origins Reveal an Intelligence Community in Disarray. Here Are 4 Fixes We Need Before the Next Pandemic
A recent Wall Street Journal article reported on new, classified intelligence from the US Department of Energy about the origins of COVID. It concluded with "low confidence" that… Read more »
March 07, 2023
Africa: Long Covid Linked to Air Pollution Exposure in Young Adults - New Study
Although COVID-19 infections are typically less severe in young adults, that doesn't mean they aren't still at risk of complications from COVID-19. For example, around one in 25… Read more »
Africa: The Pandemic Exposed Gender Inequality - Let's Seize the Opportunity to Remedy It
This year, we are commemorating International Women's Day alongside the three-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more »
March 03, 2023
South Africa: Tabloid Newspapers Are Seen As Sensationalist - but South Africa's Daily Sun Flipped That Script During Covid-19
Tabloid journalism usually refers to short, easily readable and mostly human-interest news, presented in a highly visual and sensationalist style. "Tabloidisation" has become… Read more »
February 26, 2023
Africa: Target Single Men to Counter New Covid-19 Variants, Health Survey of More Than 45,000 People Reveals
It is almost three years since the World Health Organisation characterised the Covid-19 outbreak as a pandemic. Working at breakneck speed, scientists managed to produce effective… Read more »
February 28, 2023
South Africa: Working Women Proved Their Resilience During Covid - As a Result They've Enhanced Their Well-Being
One of the outcomes of the COVID pandemic is that people's working lives have changed. Working at home and hybrid work have become prevalent, after constantly changing government… Read more »
February 23, 2023
Africa: Rejecting Science Has a Long History - the Pandemic Showed What Happens When You Ignore This
Fear engulfed everyone during the pandemic. Yet when a vaccine became available, it was met with fierce resistance. Anti-vaccination crowds formed, and some of these groups argued… Read more »
February 22, 2023
Africa: We Can Learn a Lot About Long Covid From Years of Diagnosing and Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Long COVID reportedly affects about 10% of post-COVID patients, and describes a range of ongoing or new symptoms three months post-infection. Read more »
February 21, 2023
Africa: Three in Five Long Covid Patients Have Organ Damage a Year After Infection
The latest data from the Office for National Statistics suggests that more than 1.2 million people in the UK report living with long COVID for 12 months or more. Read more »
February 20, 2023
Africa: We Got Some Key Things Wrong About Long Covid. Here Are 5 Things We've Learnt
In late 2020 as we hid from COVID, we started to hear that in some people, COVID symptoms persisted for months. They were called "long haulers" or had "long COVID". Read more »
February 17, 2023
Africa: I Bonded With Covid Vaccine Sceptics Over Saunas and Mother Earth Rituals - This Is What They Taught Me
I was standing in a forest at night, by a dark lake taking part in a Mother Earth ritual. Shaman drums echoed between the cliffs. The witch leading the ritual suddenly encouraged… Read more »
February 16, 2023
Africa: Covid-19 Restrictions Unexpectedly Reduced Islamic State Violence - Political Science Experts Explain Why
World leaders and policy experts at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic feared that the health crisis might make the world more dangerous. They worried specifically that terrorist… Read more »