Category: Development

A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt.

The outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to find treatments and vaccines.

A drug being tested by scientists at China’s prestigious Peking University could not only shorten the recovery time for those infected, but even offer short-term immunity from the virus, researchers say.

Sunney Xie, director of the university’s Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the animal testing stage.

“When we injected neutralising antibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500,” said Xie.

“That means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect.”

The drug uses neutralising antibodies — produced by the human immune system to prevent the virus infecting cells — which Xie’s team isolated from the blood of 60 recovered patients.

A study on the team’s research, published Sunday in the scientific journal Cell, suggests that using the antibodies provides a potential “cure” for the disease and shortens recovery time.

Xie said his team had been working “day and night” searching for the antibody.

“Our expertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology. When we realised that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively find the neutralising antibody we were thrilled.”

He added that the drug should be ready for use later this year and in time for any potential winter outbreak of the virus, which has infected 4.8 million people around the world and killed more than 315,000.

“Planning for the clinical trial is underway,” said Xie, adding it will be carried out in Australia and other countries since cases have dwindled in China, offering fewer human guinea pigs for testing.

“The hope is these neutralised antibodies can become a specialised drug that would stop the pandemic,” he said.

China already has five potential coronavirus vaccines at the human trial stage, a health official said last week.

But the World Health Organization has warned that developing a vaccine could take 12 to 18 months.

Scientists have also pointed to the potential benefits of plasma — a blood fluid — from recovered individuals who have developed antibodies to the virus enabling the body’s defences to attack it.

More than 700 patients have received plasma therapy in China, a process which authorities said showed “very good therapeutic effects”.

“However, it (plasma) is limited in supply,” Xie said, noting that the 14 neutralising antibodies used in their drug could be put into mass production quickly.

– Prevention and cure –

Using antibodies in drug treatments is not a new approach, and it has been successful in treating several other viruses such as HIV, Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

Xie said his researchers had “an early start” since the outbreak started in China before spreading to other countries.

Ebola drug Remdesivir was considered a hopeful early treatment for COVID-19 — clinical trials in the US showed it shortened the recovery time in some patients by a third — but the difference in mortality rate was not significant.

The new drug could even offer short-term protection against the virus.

The study showed that if the neutralising antibody was injected before the mice were infected with the virus, the mice stayed free of infection and no virus was detected.

This may offer temporary protection for medical workers for a few weeks, which Xie said they are hoping to “extend to a few months”.

More than 100 vaccines for COVID-19 are in the works globally, but as the process of vaccine development is more demanding, Xie is hoping that the new drug could be a faster and more efficient way to stop the global march of the coronavirus.

“We would be able to stop the pandemic with an effective drug, even without a vaccine,” he said.

• The IMF approved the disbursement of US$739 million to be drawn under the Rapid Credit Facility to support the authorities’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a serious toll on the Kenyan economy, significantly reducing growth, creating fiscal and external financing needs.
• It is important that the authorities resume their fiscal consolidation plans to reduce macroeconomic vulnerabilities once the crisis abates.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved the disbursement of SDR542.8 million (100 percent of quota, about US$739 million) to be drawn under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF). This will help to meet Kenya’s urgent balance of payments need stemming from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on the Kenyan economy will be severe. It will act through both global and domestic channels, and downside risks remain large. While the authorities have taken decisive action to respond to the pandemic’s health and economic impacts, the sudden shock has left Kenya with significant fiscal and external financing needs. Authorities have committed to resume their fiscal consolidation plans once the crisis abates to reduce debt vulnerabilities.

The RCF will help the authorities to address those needs. It will allow them to maintain an adequate level of international reserves and help provide the budget financing needed to respond to the pandemic.

The IMF is in close contact with the Kenyan authorities and stands ready to provide policy advice and further support, as needed.

At the conclusion of the Board discussion, Mr. Tao Zhang, Deputy managing Director and Acting Chair, stated:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a large economic shock to Kenya. The pandemic has impacted nearly all facets of the economy—particularly tourism, transport, and trade—and led to urgent balance of payments and fiscal financing needs.

“Emergency financing under the RCF will deliver liquidity support to help Kenya cover its balance of payments gap this year. It will provide much-needed resources for fiscal interventions to safeguard public health and support households and firms affected by the crisis. It will also catalyze necessary financing from other donors.

“A pause in the authorities’ fiscal consolidation plans to accommodate COVID-19-related measures is appropriate. These measures should be temporary and well-targeted. Once the crisis abates, it is critical that the authorities resume their pursuit of a growth-friendly medium-term fiscal adjustment, including raising revenues as a share of GDP, to reduce debt vulnerabilities.

“The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has taken various measures to maintain sufficient liquidity in the financial sector. It should continue to stand ready to further support the economy and the financial sector’s health, as necessary, while ensuring that policy decisions are data-driven. The CBK should also continue to allow the exchange rate to act as a shock absorber.

“To ensure that COVID-19 related resources are used for their intended purpose, the authorities plan to conduct independent post-crisis auditing of COVID-19 related expenditures and publish the results.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) urged governments to exercise caution when implementing trade restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Countries can implement temporary export limits to prevent domestic shortages of critical goods but “taken collectively, export restrictions can be dangerously counterproductive,” the IMF and the WTO said in a joint statement on Friday.

“In particular, we are concerned by supply disruptions from the growing use of export restrictions and other actions that limit trade of key medical supplies and food,” the statement said.

In 2019, exports of crucial goods, such as personal protective equipment, cleaners and ventilators, which are critical to fight against the novel coronavirus, were $300 billion, it recalled.

Noting that governments have taken several measures, including cutting import duties or curbing customs-clearance processes, the statement said: “We welcome these actions. Accelerating imports of critical medical supplies translates into saving lives and livelihoods.”

“Similar attention should be paid to facilitating exports of key items like drugs, protective gear, and ventilators,” it added.

The joint statement also warned regarding the supply of trade finance, saying: “Adequate trade finance is important to ensure that imports of food and essential medical equipment reach the economies where they are most needed.”

In addition, it said, critical workers for agricultural production are not able to move while new cropping seasons are starting.

“We urge governments to address these challenges in a safe and proportionate manner,” it underlined.

After originating in China last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 185 countries and regions, with Europe and the US currently the worst-hit regions.

The pandemic has killed over 192,000 people, with total infections exceeding 2.73 million, while more than 752,100 have recovered, according to U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

By Aidan Hartley

Red roses are hardly a priority for people in a virus-wrecked global economy, and one day recently the world’s flower market pretty much collapsed. At the vast Aalsmeer auction in Holland, there were scented mountains of unsold roses, gerberas and tulips. Some last stems still find their way into bouquets across a world that has cancelled all gatherings except funerals. But in the coming months, cut flowers might become a sight as rare as bananas were for children in the Blitz.

This story is a disaster for Kenya, my home country, which was until last month a top flower exporter. While western states repurpose their economies towards becoming vast hospitals, Africa is too poor to cope with the medical emergency, and virus deaths will probably not be the greatest challenge ahead. Even in a good year, multitudes go hungry, while respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, Aids, malaria, tuberculosis and measles scythe down 3.5 million people. In Kenya, some wags have pointed out that police enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew have already killed more people than the virus has locally — but later, accurately calculating total deaths from Covid-19 in Africa will involve greater guesswork even than elsewhere, since mathematical modelling tends to get lost in the Congo’s rainforests or the shifting sands of Somalia.

If the virus spares the young, Africa is better off than Europe. Our median age is less than 20; three quarters are under 35. Most ordinary folk are fit, slim, non-smoking and healthy. Few live beyond 60, since misrule has so impoverished many hospitals that they lack even aspirins. The local joke in Kenya is that we have more parliamentarians (350) than ICU beds (130). ‘Underlying health issues’ affect mainly the tiny urban class of richer, often politically connected folk, who pick up westerners’ bad habits. In other words, the pandemic’s main victims might be ageing politicians and their hangers–on, who find themselves unable to fly their private jets to Europe for treatment — a cull of sugar-fed, obese oligarchs.

Starkest of all will be Africa’s economic collapse, wiping out jobs for many of the continent’s 1.2 billion people. Tourism, vital to the conservation of wildlife, forests and monuments, has fallen apart. Mining, oil and gas are close behind. Exports of tea, coffee and cocoa are also being hit hard. Until recently Africa served as a giant nursery, raising migrants to supply cheap labour for rich countries. Every month these workers send money home to their families, and remittances are now the largest source of foreign exchange in many countries. As diaspora Africans fall out of work, these funds are evaporating. In the high-density slums, each breadwinner might feed ten mouths. Nairobi city governor Mike Sonko promised mass distributions of Hennessy cognac because ‘alcohol plays a major role in killing the coronavirus’ — but such clowning aside, slum-dwellers have no cash reserves, nor a welfare state to rescue them. As global supply chains collapse, it becomes horribly clear that out of 54 African states, only Zambia is a net food exporter. Many Africans routinely rely on food aid. For oil-dependent Nigeria’s nearly 200 million people, life is about to get tough.

Even before the pandemic, debt-laden Africa was gazing into an economic abyss deepened by spendthrift policies and crashing commodity prices. South Africa’s junk status is now at the optimistic end of the spectrum. ‘Sub-Saharan countries with no exception that I can think of have gorged on borrowing and balance sheets are maxed out,’ according to Kenya’s most prominent economic analyst, Aly-Khan Satchu. ‘It’s biblical.’ Without restructuring, central banks will default, especially on their vast loans from China, which has built so much sub-standard, bribe-soaked belt and road infrastructure. The recent mistreatment of black people in Guangzhou has horrified Africans, who know where the virus came from. China has flooded the continent with its citizens, who along the way have set out to poach and eat every African wild species imaginable — sea slugs, elephants, rhinos, big cats, aardvarks, tortoises, donkeys, pangolins. Naturally, Africa’s leaders have taken their begging bowls to the IMF and World Bank, asking for a mega-bailout. ‘This time hopefully those institutions will be more intelligent about how the money is spent, rather than just shovelling it out to leaders who all round trip it offshore,’ says Satchu.

Britain’s approach to this is upsetting. Boris’s government says ‘all our resources’ must focus on beating the virus. The FCO urges thousands of Brits to come home, fleeing the Commonwealth and foreign investments that until March were such a key part of post-Brexit policy. Masks and ventilators are the language of diplomacy now. Until this month the British Army had its largest overseas training operation near my house in Kenya, but due to fears of civil unrest the mission has been mothballed. There are more jihadi terrorists in Africa than anywhere else these days, and al Qaeda and Isis affiliates have exploited recent disarray to escalate violence and seize territory. As the UK moves gazillions in private debt to the government’s balance sheet and tax revenue disappears, one wonders how DfID’s aid budget of £14 billion can be justified. Since the same will go for other newly poor western donors, Africa will be left on its own.

Yet there is a silver lining. Some years ago, the Arab rulers of Sudan shut down the pipeline that traverses its territory towards the Red Sea, pumping crude oil production from its southern neighbour, South Sudan. When the embargo hit I predicted social collapse. Yet nothing changed, because South Sudan’s rulers had always stolen all the oil money. The ministers’ fat sons had to cut back on spare parts for their gold-plated Hummers, whereas most local people simply woke up in the morning to dig their fields and grow sorghum, manioc and vegetables.

In the same way now, people across Africa will struggle by on the land, relying on extended family relationships. Unless there is a dramatic reordering of the system, some states will fail, swept away in urban uprisings and fresh civil conflicts. Surely it’s time to abolish or reform the edifice of international aid that has propped up this kleptocracy for decades — the racket run by UN agencies and leftist charities like Oxfam. Covid-19 is the Chernobyl moment for bad regimes and badly managed aid programmes in Africa. Pestilence heralds a time of change more dramatic perhaps than any since the colonial scramble for Africa. It’s the end of an epoch and an opportunity for ordinary Africans to build a better future for themselves.

Author is a writer with UK magazine The Spectator.

Experts have warned against any complacency in Africa, although the coronavirus pandemic has so far produced relatively few reported deaths on the continent.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Deputy Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ahmed Ogwell Ouma said the quick response by different countries and less mobility of people in the continent has so far saved the continent.

“Africa is different because we started acting quickly. When we saw the pandemic spreading, we began to prepare. And governments began to put in place mechanisms to identify those who may have the disease, to test them and to follow up those who may have been exposed,” he said.

Ouma said due to past experiences that have devoured many lives in African countries, they started early, unlike much privileged European and American counterparts.

He said the less mobility of people and the absence of a rapid transport system also made a difference.

“The second difference is that in Africa the modes of travel as not the same as the rest of the world. Someone in Addis Ababa is unlikely to go outside the city frequently. And the modes of transport are poor. In other parts of the world, air travel is the most common means. And people travel quite frequently, which also made the virus to travel fast,” said Ouma.

He, however, cautioned that it was not time to celebrate as the continent is not completely out of danger.

“We must remain vigilant to make sure we do not have many infected people. It will be a disaster in the continent, “he said.

The top expert also complained that lockdown across the continent has also affected medical and other supplies. He said there was a need to start solidarity flights to transport supplies.

Of the five regions in Africa, northern Africa has taken over southern Africa as the most affected both in terms of cases and deaths. According to U.S.-based John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, Egypt has so far reported 3,490 infected cases with 264 deaths, while South Africa registered 3,465 cases and 58 deaths.

East Africa least affected

East Africa has been least affected so far. Djibouti, with a population of 958,920 has registered 945 cases, while its neighbor Ethiopia with 110 million population has so far 114 confirmed cases.

Like all over the world, Africa is also likely to witness a sharp decline in productivity, loss of jobs and revenues to the pandemic.

“As engines and drivers of economic growth, cities face considerable risks in light of COVID-19 with implications for the continent’s resilience to the pandemic,” said Thokozile Ruzvidzo director of the Gender, Poverty and Social Policy Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

“The effects are likely to be severe in urban areas. The urban economy [manufacturing and services] currently account for 64% of GDP in Africa,” said Ruzvidzo.

Firms and businesses in African cities are highly vulnerable to COVID-19 related effects, especially SMEs which account for 80% of employment in Africa.

“Additionally, urban consumption and expenditure [on food, manufactured goods, utilities, transport, energy, and services] are likely to experience a sharp fall in light of COVID-related lockdowns and reduced restrictions,” he said.

Speaker Erastus Lokaale on Monday told journalists that the county assembly had approved the supplementary budget 2 which allocated shs 667,570,600 towards covid 19 emergency response.

Lokaale said he has forwarded the appropriation Bill to the Govenor for assent.

He said the funds had been allocated to the ministries of water, health and public service and disaster management.

The ministry of public service and disaster management would receive the lion’s share of shs 441, 231,000 to provide relief food to the vulnerable people.

“We made this decision because the majority of our people are poor so we needed to cushion them during this crisis,” said Lokaale.

The ministry of health was allocated shs 159,335,600 while the ministry of water was allocated shs 67 million.

The speaker said funds for health docket would be used to purchase essential commodities like facemasks, and completion of the Lodwar county referral hospital intensive care unit as well as the purchase of ventilators and other equipment.

Water was also identified as a key component and the funds would be used to enhance hygiene standards by ensuring boreholes are working and for water tankering in areas without water.

To ensure accountability, the county assembly of Turkana has formed an adhoc Committee to oversight the utilisation of funds meant to address the covid 19 pandemic.

Lokaale said hat the committee is keen to ensure that funds meant to fight the pandemic are not embezzled.

“We understand that in times of crisis like these people can use the opportunity to do funny things that is why we are very keen to ensure funds are utilised to help the wananchi as intended,” said Lokaale.

The ad-hoc committee which he leads includes deputy speaker Mike Ewoi, leader of majority Bethwel Kobongin, leader of minority Benedict Lokamar, Katilu MCA James Abei.

The assembly Committee on finance will soon be meeting to discuss proposals from the executive including reducing cess for small scale traders during the crisis.
Govenor Josphat Nanok last week said his government has come up with a raft of measures to protect the most affected by the corona virus crisis.

He said that the County Treasury will waive a total of Sh40.7m from agricultural produce cess, water distribution and drill services, health sector fees, educational institutions, liquor licensing, market fees and single business permits for salons, barber shops and restaurant and entertainment facilities that is contained in the Turkana County Finance Amendment Bill 2020 as an additional measure to address COVID-19.

The Governor has also directed a tax exemption on market collection fees in the months of April, May and June to cushion the citizens, both traders and household water users from the loss arising from COVID-19.

Governor Nanok who was addressing the media with other County leaders at the new County HQ complex said that the County will clear eligible pending bills worth Sh90 Million within one month to “improve liquidity and ensure businesses remain operational.”

GUEST COLUMN

By Cheike Hadjibou Soumare

Germany is currently trending after a newspaper sent a letter to China and in it demanding a compensation of $162 billion over the destruction caused by the virus.

The later put blame on China for not acting fast enough to curb the spread and lack of openness. The virus that originated in Wuhan, China has now clocked 2 million mark of infected people globally.

In Kenya, the virus has now infected 254 people and 14 already dead with numbers projected to accelerate in the coming weeks and months.

Currently, the country is in a partial lockdown with movements restricted outside designated areas. The country is still observing the curfew and many people are either now working from home or jobless.

Tourism industry has been dealt a big blow and nearly all hotels have been shut. It’s not just that, key economic pillars have been frozen and country crawling to a halt.

With many countries now blaming China for the mess caused by the coronavirus, Narok County Senator, Ledama Olekina now wants the Chinese government held responsible and billed for it. “This COVID19 is expensive someone must pay for it! Kenya has lost over $ 1.2b in tourism revenue, $2B in diaspora remittances, the NSE has tumbled. Our entire economy has shrunk and someone must pay for it! StateHouseKenya please send a bill of $100B to China to pay!” He said.

”Can’t sleep thinking about how life has changed, thousands of SMS’s asking for rent money, food money for the day and we continue entertaining this Chinese Mess? I agree with @realDonaldTrump the Chinese must pay! No gym just getting FAT! Hapana!” He continued.