Month: February 2024

Zimbabwe began an emergency campaign to inoculate more than 4 million children against polio on Tuesday after health authorities detected three cases caused by the rare mutation of the weakened virus used in oral vaccines, including a 10-year-old girl who was paralyzed in January.

The health ministry said laboratory tests from samples collected from sewage sites in several areas of the capital, Harare, late last year showed the presence of a mutated polio virus that originated in an oral vaccine used in the global eradication effort.

In rare instances, the live polio virus in vaccines can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks, especially in places with poor sanitation and low vaccination levels.

The number of polio cases globally has dropped by more than 99% since the global effort to wipe out the disease led by the World Health Organization and others began in 1988. But the majority of children being paralyzed by polio these days are being crippled by a virus that was originally linked to a vaccine.

Vaccination teams in Zimbabwe are moving from house to house to deliver more doses to protect children, while others will be stationed at health facilities, authorities said.

Officials said it was the first time Zimbabwe would be using a new oral polio vaccine specifically designed to reduce the risk of the virus within it mutating into a dangerous form.

Zimbabwe aims to roll out more than 10 million new vaccine doses targeting just over 4 million children below the age of 10 in two rounds in February and March. More than 95% of that population needs to be immunized against polio to stop new outbreaks.

Last year, the wild poliovirus caused a dozen cases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the only countries that still have that virus. In comparison, polioviruses linked to the vaccine caused more than 500 cases in nearly two dozen countries globally, mostly in Africa.

Zimbabwe last reported a wild poliovirus case in 1986, according to the United Nations children’s Agency.

Zimbabwe Health Minister Douglas Mombeshora called the new detection of polio “a serious concern” but said they were prepared to respond swiftly. The health ministry said it was collaborating with health authorities in at least five other African countries that had recently detected polioviruses through environmental sampling and routine surveillance.

Polio can cause total paralysis, and children under 5 are especially vulnerable. It is transmitted from person to person, mainly through contact with contaminated feces, water or food, as well as through droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected person.

Nigeria’s defense chief expressed frustration Tuesday with what he called the “double standards” of some countries that won’t sell his military weapons because of human rights concerns.

Gen. Christopher Musa’s comment underscores one of the biggest challenges for Africa’s most populous nation in combating a deadly and complex security crisis, from the Islamic militant insurgency in the northeast to the dozens of armed groups targeting travellers and communities in the northwest and central regions.

“Even with our money, it is difficult getting equipment,” Musa told reporters in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja, acknowledging a huge need for items such as helicopters, drones and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.

“Some say human rights, some say ‘You have killed’ … but again, sometimes, people pointing fingers at you have done worse and yet nobody is holding them to account. It is these double standards that (are) making the world more dangerous,” Musa said.

He declined to name the countries in question when asked by The Associated Press.

Nigeria’s security forces for many years have faced allegations of extrajudicial killings and illegal arrests. The United States and other major arms suppliers at one point or another have withheld the sale of weapons over those accusations.

In December, at least 85 civilians were killed when a Nigerian army drone erroneously targeted a religious gathering in northwest Kaduna state, the latest of several such incidents.

Musa said Nigeria’s military has continued to improve on its human rights record and is holding its personnel to account. Alleged abuses are often investigated, and a report on the December incident will be released soon, he said.

“The Nigerian Armed Forces can secure Nigeria (and) the entire region,” Musa said, but added that the lack of needed weapons will continue to limit that capacity.

However, there is little evidence to show that Nigeria’s military has improved on its human rights record, according to Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International’s director in Nigeria.

“Protecting civilians should be their priority (and) they should look at all human rights violations they have committed to ensure accountability,” Sanusi said.

U.S. military support to Nigeria has at times included training on how to mitigate risks to civilians, according to a State Department statement in January on security cooperation. It said that in August, Nigeria delivered the first payment for 12 attack helicopters worth a total of $997 million.

Extremist rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have killed at least two dozen civilians in separate attacks this week, local authorities and a civil society group said Tuesday.

Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels , who have links to the Islamic State group , killed 13 people in Mambasa territory, Ituri province , on Tuesday, said Christophe Munyanderu, Convention coordinator for the respect for human rights . Most of the victims were killed in their homes, he added.

In neighboring North Kivu province , the ADF killed at least 11 people with machetes and guns in Beni territory on Monday, said Colonel Charles Ehuta Omeonga, the region’s administrator.

Civilians have also been targeted in their homes, and the death toll is higher because some people are missing, he added.

Violence has been brewing for years in eastern DRC, where around 120 armed groups are fighting for power, land, minerals or the security of their communities.

In recent years, ADF attacks have intensified and spread to Goma, the main city in eastern Congo, as well as Ituri province.

Rights groups and the United Nations have accused the ADF of killing hundreds of people and kidnapping more, including large numbers of children.

With placards reading ‘end bad government now’ and ‘end hunger’, residents of one of Nigeria’s largest cities took to the streets on Monday (Feb.19).

Large crowds marched through the centre of Ibadan, in the country’s west.

According to government statistics, the inflation rate in January rose to 29.9%, its highest since 1996, mainly driven by food and non-alcoholic beverages.

“This country is bleeding, this country is hard, this country is angry. People are suffering. No one can afford three square meals, even two square meals in our dear country today again. Inflation on all goods. Inflation of foods, inflation of cement, inflation of cloth, inflation of motors (cars), inflation of bikes, inflation of transportation from one point to another. That’s why we come out for a peaceful protest,” Sodiq, an artisan said.

Nigerians are facing one of the West African nation’s worst economic crises in as many years triggered by a surging inflation rate which follows monetary policies that have dipped the local currency to an all-time low against the dollar, provoking anger and protests across the country.

“Everything is expensive,” fashion designer Oilatan laments.

“There’s nothing we want to do in Nigeria with ease, we just hope things get better. Everything, even our parents are complaining, we too are complaining. People want to go to school but there’s no money, please help us beg President (bola) Tinubu.”

Bola Tinubu’s government launched reforms last year that saw the removal of gas subsidies.

This eroded incomes and savings while squeezing millions already struggling with hardship. A situation worsened by a plummeting currency.

A zookeeper at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Nigeria has lost his life in a fatal encounter with one of the lions under his care.

Olabode Olawuyi, who had been working at the university zoo for close to a decade, was attacked during a routine feeding session, according to the university.

Despite the efforts of his colleagues to intervene, Olawuyi sustained fatal injuries inflicted by one of the lions, leaving them unable to save him from the vicious attack.

University response

University authorities have since euthanized the lion involved in the tragic event, ensuring the safety of both staff and visitors at the zoo.

The zookeeper, a veterinary technologist, had been “taking care of the lions since they were born on campus about nine years ago”.

“We never knew what came over the male lion that it had to attack [him],” the university’s public relations officer Abiodun Olarewaju said in a report by the media.

However, The university students’ union leader, Abbas Akinremi, told Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper that the attack was caused by “human error” after the zookeeper had forgotten to lock the door after feeding.

Social media reactions

On social media, the issue has been leading trends with many sharing Nigerians on graphic images of the incident at the university in Osun state in the south-west.

The news of the incident is said to have sent the university community into mourning.

The university sent a team to the family of the deceased to console them.

Its vice-chancellor, Prof Adebayo Simeon Bamire, said he was “saddened” by the incident and ordered a thorough investigation “into the immediate and remote causes of the incident”.

Nigeria’s currency naira on Monday fell to record lows on both the official and unofficial markets on while stocks posted their biggest one-day fall in more than a year.

The latest comes as Africa’s largest economy experiences crippling dollar shortages though the country’s apex bank chief Governor Olayemi Cardoso has said that foreign exchange liquidity is improving.

The Naira dropped to 1,712 naira per dollar in late trades on the official market and to around the same level on the unofficial market after extending losses according to a Reuters report.

Last Thursday, data showed that the country’s inflation rate had accelerated further in January, reaching almost 30% in annual terms, driven by soaring food costs.

On the stock exchange, stocks on Nigeria’s All-Share Index posted their single biggest fall since Oct. 2022 when they fell 3.15% on Monday after banking, consumer goods and industrial shares dropped.

Cardoso has hiked open market rates to draw investors to bills which had lost their shine to equities as inflation climbed, but treasury rates still lag the benchmark policy rate and the fall in the naira means yields would have to rise further.