Feature Stories

With 620 million COVID-19 vaccine doses set to arrive in Africa through COVAX alone by the end of 2021, African countries are set to roll out a range of different vaccines, each with their own unique storage, transport and administration requirements. 

A medical doctor with experience in over 15 countries in Africa and the Americas, Dr Paluku was Chief Medical Officer for North Kivu province in his native Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) before joining the World Health Organization (WHO) back in 2001.

On one of Naomi Otua’s regular trips to visit her grandson James in the town of Assin Fosu in Ghana’s Central Region, she noticed something was seriously wrong. The 10-year-old’s eyes were jaundiced and he had lost a significant amount of weight. Worried, Otua decided to take James to the Suhum Government Hospital.

Fast-spreading misinformation online is hard to measure, but the 10 organizations and 10 African fact-checking groups that make up the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance are working to track and debunk dangerous myths on the pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. 

Around 7.7 million African children missed out on vital first doses of Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis, Measles and Polio vaccines in 2020. The nearly 10% rise in missed vaccinations on the previous year in Africa was driven by disruptions to health services by the COVID-19 pandemic, new data by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World health Organization (WHO) show.

Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been hailed as exemplary for its planning, speed and high-level leadership, but dig a little deeper and there are yet more crucial lessons in working with far-flung communities and building up trust in the vaccines. 

Lagos – When Zainab Olowoyo got COVID-19, she was one of thousands of people residing in the populous Lagos State whose case was not severe enough for her to be sent to the nearest isolation unit. Instead, Olowoyo received hospital-level care in her own home through a Home-Based Care programme implemented by the state government in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). She had a smooth recovery and was cleared of the virus within 10 days.

A public health professional with an MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr Fiona Braka has worked for World Health Organization (WHO) for the past 18 years supporting countries, including her native Uganda, Ethiopia and Nigeria, to build capacity to deliver vaccines. She is now bringing her vast experience in polio eradication and broader immunization to support the continent’s fight against disease outbreak emergencies and humanitarian crises.

Constane Sigu was watching television at home one evening in Bulawayo in southwest Zimbabwe when the Ministry of Health and Child Care’s (MoHCC) advertisement for its new Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine (TCV) campaign caught her attention.