HEALTH
SENEGAL: “Let’s respect the measures barriers!” By Mary Teuw Niane
Dear friends, dear friends,The epidemic of the covid19 corona virus continues to expand. Slowly, it is spreading and growing on the African continent. In the world out of a thousand (1000) tested positive cases, twenty three (23) are African, three (3) more than last week. Out of a thousand deaths related to COVID19, eleven (11) are African, one (1) more than last week.By Mary Teuw Niane
The COVID19 corona virus also continues to grow in our country, Senegal, with an average of one (1) deaths per two (2) days. As Professor Moussa Seydi says, the multiplication of positive cases leads to an increase in the probability of having serious cases and, unfortunately, deaths. The mortality rate increased slightly this week from 1.1% to 1.2%. It remains below the African rate which has fallen to 2.9% and very far from the world rate which is 6.06%.
The COVID19 corona virus also continues to grow in our country, Senegal, with an average of one (1) deaths per two (2) days.
At a time when North America is overtaking Europe in number of positive cases and South America, with Brazil at its head, is fast approaching, Africa remains for minds well-thinking an enigma. Senegal, for example, with sixteen (16) million inhabitants has forty two (42) deaths, while the Netherlands, in Europe, with seventeen (17) million inhabitants have five thousand nine hundred and one (5951) deaths and Ecuador, in South America, at three thousand three hundred and thirty four (3334) deaths. This favourable situation for Africa must encourage us to be more vigilant, more organized, more methodical and more rigorous in order to defeat this pandemic. So we should establish a specific strategy to suppress the epidemic in the Dakar region, the department of Mbacké and Thiès. Focusing only on Dakar by leaving Mbacké aside will not solve the problem in the medium and long term. I recall that the Khalife General of the Mourides, Serigne Mountakha Bassirou Mbacké was one of the first authorities to understand the importance of the fight against COVID 19 by handing over a contribution of two hundred million francs. It is then natural to be able to count on its support to mobilize the populations of the department of Mbacké, and beyond, in the advocacy for the respect of measures barriers to stop COVID 19. It is the place to congratulate the Governor of Tambacounda, the territorial administration, the health personnel, the defence and security forces and the populations of Goudiri who allowed the extinction.
Multinational drug companies think first of the opportunity to make money than to cure patients at low cost. Africa is the last wheel of the cart!
This week, with the article in the journal The Lancet, the very strong link between health, medical research, drugs and capital has reappeared! Multinational drug companies think first of the opportunity to make money than to cure patients at low cost. Africa is the last wheel of the cart! One more reason to equip our research laboratories, finance our research projects and value our endogenous knowledge.
Finally, wintering is coming. Our crops today will produce our crops of tomorrow and will ensure our grain self-sufficiency in 2021. Everything must be done for this agricultural campaign to succeed, it is our dowry against famine and malnutrition that the birds of bad omen predict to Africa for next year.
Let’s respect the barrier measures!
United and committed, we will succeed!
Mary Teuw Niane
30 May 2020
According to a senior official at the World Health Organization, a new highly mutated variant of COVID called BA.2.86 has been discovered in several countries including Switzerland, South Africa, as well as Israel, Denmark, the United States and the United Kingdom.
According to “Reuters”, the variant was first spotted in Denmark on 24 July after sequencing of the virus infecting a patient at risk of becoming seriously ill”. And so it was detected “in other symptomatic patients, during routine checks at airports and in wastewater samples in a handful of countries”.
Thus, scientists have indicated that “although it was important to monitor BA.2.86, it was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of serious illness and death given the immune defenses developed worldwide as a result of vaccination and previous infection”.
WHO COVID-19 technical officer Maria Van Kerkhove said, “The numbers are still low”. But the reduction in global surveillance could lead to rapid circulation of the virus…
A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) highlights that 5.6 billion people, or 71% of the world’s population, are now protected by at least one good practice policy to save lives from deadly smoking, five times more than in 2007.
Over the past 15 years, since WHO’s MPOWER measures were introduced globally, smoking rates have fallen. Without this reduction, the UN World Health Agency estimates that there are now 300 million more smokers worldwide. This new WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic focuses on protecting the public from passive smoking, noting that nearly 40% of countries now have fully non-smoking indoor public places. The report assesses the progress made by countries in tobacco control and shows that two other countries, Mauritius and the Netherlands, have reached the level of best practices for all MPOWER measures, a feat that only Brazil and Turkey have achieved so far. These data show that, slowly but surely, more and more people are protected from the harms of tobacco by WHO policies based on evidence and best practices.”said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, congratulating Mauritius on becoming the first country in Africa and the Netherlands on becoming the first country in the European Union to implement WHO’s comprehensive tobacco control policies at the highest level. Eight countries are only one policy away from joining the leaders of tobacco control: Ethiopia, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand and Spain. However, much remains to be done: 44 countries are not protected by any of WHO’s MPOWER measures. At the same time, 53 countries have still not adopted a total ban on smoking in health facilities. In addition, only half of the countries have smoke-free private workplaces and restaurants.
Passive smoking
“WHO urges all countries to implement all MPOWER measures at the level of best practices to fight the tobacco epidemic, which kills 8.7 million people worldwide, and to oppose the tobacco and nicotine industries, who are lobbying against these public health measures,” said Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at WHO. About 1.3 million people die each year from second-hand smoke. All of these deaths could be prevented. People exposed to second-hand smoke are at risk of dying from heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. In this fight against tobacco, the ban on smoking in public spaces is only one of the measures of the Effective Tobacco Control Package, MPOWER, designed to help countries implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and stem the tobacco epidemic. The paper shows that all countries, regardless of income level, can lower the demand for deadly tobacco, achieve major public health victories and save billions of dollars in health care and production costs.
Measles is back in force, with more than “400 cases recorded nationally”. It is a revelation of Doctor Boly Diop, responsible for epidemiological and post-vaccination surveillance at the Ministry of Health and Social Action, on Thursday, July 13, 2023.
“Performance in the first half of the year revealed the existence of a measles epidemic,” said Dr. Boly Diop, noting that Fatick is the only one of the country’s 14 regions that has yet to register a confirmed case of measles.
Outside of Fatick, all regions have confirmed cases of measles and there are districts that have become epidemic. This means that today, measles is back in force, there are confirmed cases and epidemics that are recorded throughout the regions,’ he said, on the sidelines of a quarterly coordination meeting for epidemiological surveillance.
