Author: Reuters

Two new trials of Ebola vaccines begin in Africa and Europe

Healthcare workers, wearing protective suits, leave a high-risk area at the French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières Elwa hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. Pic: Dominique Faget/AFP
Healthcare workers, wearing protective suits, leave a high-risk area at the French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières Elwa hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. Pic: Dominique Faget/AFP

Two new Ebola vaccine trials began on Wednesday with volunteers in Britain, France and Senegal getting “prime-boost” immunisations developed by Bavarian Nordic, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson.

The mid-stage, or Phase II, trials are designed primarily to test the vaccines’ safety, but will also assess whether they provoke an immune response against the deadly virus.

The development of the prime-boost and other vaccines was accelerated in response to vast outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa, where at least 11,200 people have died so far in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

“The current Ebola outbreak has reinforced that speed of response is crucial,” said Egeruan Babatunde Imoukhuede, who is coordinating one of the trials in Senegal.

“Outbreak diseases spread quickly, so any vaccination approach must be able to keep up.”

Data from the World Health Organisation show there were 30 confirmed cases of Ebola in West Africa in the week to July 5.

In Liberia, which was declared Ebola-free in May, a sixth new case was confirmed on Tuesday in what health officials fear is a new wave of the outbreak.

While the number of Ebola cases has dropped sharply in recent months, researchers said the flare-up in Liberia underlines the need to push ahead with developing potential vaccines that may help control this and future outbreaks.

The trial of the Bavarian Nordic and J&J prime-boost combination initially aims to recruit more than 600 healthy adult volunteers in Britain and France.

Bavarian said it hoped to launch another phase of this trial in Africa later this year involving 1,200 volunteers, but other large clinical trials have recently been thwarted by the drop in case numbers.

Previously planned trials of GSK, Merck and J&J shots in West Africa have been struggling to recruit volunteers with enough exposure to Ebola to prove whether their vaccines are doing the job and preventing infection.

The second trial will be conducted in Senegal and uses two vaccines tested first in people at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute and being developed in a partnership with GSK. The first, based on a chimpanzee adenovirus, is designed to stimulate, or prime, an initial immune response, while the second is designed to boost that response.

Each vaccine is based on genetically modifying safe viruses to carry just one part of the Ebola virus that will stimulate the body’s immune system. Researchers stressed that none of the shots contains any live Ebola virus.

Kate Kelland for Reuters

South Africa’s jobless ignite creative power with solar kits

(Screenshot: ecoboxx.co.za)
(Screenshot: ecoboxx.co.za)

A motorbike accident two years ago in the Cape Town suburb of Milnerton left Pascal Kassongo with a leg fracture, multiple cuts and a written-off bike, crippling his courier business.

Two weeks in hospital, followed by several more of physiotherapy and recovery, drove the father of four into near destitution.

Too weak to buy and deliver goods to clients, his opportunity to earn R300-R400 ($24.40-$32.60) a day was gone.

Originally from Uvira in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Kassongo fled the war there in 2007, and had only a few friends he could call on for help in South Africa.

One of them was a pastor who took him to Scalabrini, a centre that helps migrants settle and find an economic foothold in South Africa.

As well as receiving regular food parcels, Kassongo was recruited for the “Amandla!” Project, whose name means “power” in the Xhosa and Zulu languages.

The scheme trains unemployed people, especially migrants, to run small businesses using a solar-powered kit called Ecoboxx.

Inside the box

The Ecoboxx is a lightweight, portable power supply, charged with two solar panels, that can provide 50 hours of power. It comes with two LED lights, a USB-driven fan, hair clippers and a charging cable for cell phones and other devices.

The kit was designed for the Amandla Project, with the intention of giving entrepreneurs a tool to power their activities, said Merle Mills of Community Chest, the organisation that came up with the project.

Using the kit, an individual can make up to R1 600 per month cutting hair five days a week, or at least R1 400 by charging up to seven cell phones at once with the device, Mills added.

Community Chest CEO Lorenzo Davids said a Dutch investor had backed the Ecoboxx as a way of helping Africans access economic opportunities.

“Getting into green or solar technology is the ideal platform to ensure we give our people low-cost and sustainable resources so they can develop the economy for themselves,” Davids told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Community Chest started Amandla in January after getting funding of almost 2 million rand, on condition the kit would be made available at a nominal cost of R200 to keep people out of debt.

Davids said the Ecoboxx would help entrepreneurs in townships and rural areas “electrify” their homes, and set up businesses to generate income for their families and communities.

At first, it was targeted at individuals who find it hard to break into the mainstream economy, like African migrants and communities where small businesses lack access to electricity.

The solar device, which retails for R4 000, is manufactured by a technology company that also supplies to retail stores in South Africa.

So far, Amandla has distributed 300 kits – almost a third of the planned total – including 50 to foreign nationals.

Spreading the light

“After spending a month in Pollsmoor prison for selling pirated DVDs and CDs, I was determined to sustain myself through legal means,” said Papy Shereza, 31, a bio-chemistry dropout from a Congolese university.

After enrolling in the Amandla programme, he was given an Ecoboxx, which he uses to run his own barbershop in the community of Du Noon.

“On weekends I make good money, but during the week I have to supplement my income by selling other hair products for women,” he said.

He also charges cell phones, and in a good week, he can earn up to 1,000 rand.

In the sprawling community of Gugulethu, Janet Bete, who came to South Africa from Zimbabwe in 2007, is equally happy. Her son, 24, uses an Ecoboxx to power a family barber shop.

“In my neighbourhood there is a man who runs a spaza (tuck shop) but has no electricity, so I hire out the solar lights to him daily from 5am when he opens, to 7am when it’s no longer dark,” said Bete.

The enterprising woman, who also manages a crèche, rents out the solar lights for evening church crusades and parties too.

“Whenever there is a funeral in my community and there is no power, I donate my lights – it’s my way of paying (people) back for living well together,” she added.

In Milnerton, Kassongo has adopted a different approach.

“I don’t own a barbershop, but I hire out my kit to local South Africans who do. We share the proceeds,” he said. “It helps put something on the table.”

Joe Pereira, head of strategy for Community Chest, said the Amandla project aimed to expand its opportunities to all “deserving” South Africans.

“Being creative around renewable energy will benefit many people,” he added.

Munyaradzi Makoni for Reuters

Tanzania’s female politicians being trained to campaign in a male-dominated political world

(L to R) Burundi Foreign Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe, South African President Jacob Zuma, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete attend the summit to discuss the crisis in Burundi. (Pic: Reuters)
(L to R) Burundi Foreign Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe, South African President Jacob Zuma, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete attend a summit to discuss the crisis in Burundi. (Pic: Reuters)

Aspiring politician Asha Salum is busy trying to convince people in her area of Dar Es Salaam to support her candidacy for a council position at elections later this year, one of a growing number of women seeking political office in Tanzania.

The softly-spoken politician, who at the age of 31 is the youngest candidate for this post in Tegeta in Kawe constituency in 20 years, is one of a new generation of women being groomed to muscle into the male-dominated political world.

The East African nation of about 50 million people has had few women in top leadership positions since adopting a multi-party system in 1992 but female campaigners are hoping to change this at the nation’s fifth general election on Oct. 25.

Salum is one of 2 600 aspiring female politicians to receive training which started this week from a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Tanzania on how to improve their campaigning skills and avoid the sexual pitfalls often faced by Tanzanian women in any bid to advance a career.

“Some women are easily tempted to offer sexual corruption to officials so their names are considered for nomination,” Salum told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adorned in the traditional green and yellow of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.

“How many men you will need to sleep with to win a parliamentary or councillorship seat? I think now is the time to say enough is enough to ‘sextortion'”.

The training, organised by the Tanzania Women Cross Party (TWCP), aims to equip female candidates vying in October for presidential, parliamentary and council positions with political skills and techniques.

According to training organisers, the candidates will receive training about topical political issues surrounding the elections, the role of parliament and local councils, and relevant election law rules and regulations.

Presidential hopes
Four female candidates have expressed interest in running for president on the CCM ticket, including the former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Asha-Rose Migiro.

This is the first time in Tanzania that women have come forward seeking nomination for the presidential job.

“By implementing the party’s manifesto I will build an independent and modern economy to benefit all Tanzanians,” said Migiro on collecting her nomination form this week.

Migiro, a lawyer by profession, worked at the United Nations under Ban Ki-moon from 2007 to 2012 and has become the 12th Tanzania cabinet minister to express interest in succeeding President Jakaya Kikwete who is due to retire later this year.

Tanzania has tried to ensure substantial political representation of women with a quota system defining 30 percent of the 357 seats in Parliament as “special seats” reserved for women. Political parties that gain at least 5 percent of the vote in the general election nominate these women.

But women’s rights campaigners are concerned most of the women in Parliament are in quota seats and not elected directly from constituencies which limits their support for the top jobs.

Campaigners are concerned that women lack the skills, education and experience to carve out a successful career in politics and many lack the financial security to be able to focus on politics rather than the basic needs of their families.

A recent Afrobarometer survey also found that violence in African politics may discourage female participation.

“There’s no democracy in the political parties. Female candidates are often ignored in the nomination process and that’s why we need to train them to reverse that unfair trend,” Ave Maria Semakafu, the chairwoman of TWCP told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Although the number of female legislators rose to 35 percent at the 2010 election from 21.5 percent in 2000, rights groups says it not enough as only 17 were elected from constituencies.

Willibrod Slaa from the opposition Chadema party and vice-chair of Tanzania Centre for Democracy, said action was needed.

“No serious party can any longer ignore that women constitute 51 percent of this country and we simply need to be much better at including them in politics,” he told the centre’s annual conference earlier this year.

Despite the challenges, women’s participation in politics has improved in most African countries in the past two decades.

Malawi recently swore in its first female president, Joyce Banda, and Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has occupied her country’s highest office since 2006.

Rwanda leads the world in the share of female legislators at 63.8 per cent of the seats, according to United Nations data.

Senegal, the Seychelles and South Africa have more than 40 percent, and Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Uganda are not far behind with women in about 35 percent of parliamentary seats.

Salum said she was confident the training would boost her chances to win a seat in October on her own merits.

“I have what it takes to serve my people and solve their problems as existing leaders have failed to do so,” she said.

Maasai women lead a solar revolution

(Pic: Green Energy Africa)
(Pic: Green Energy Africa)

Not long ago, dusk was a time of unease for the people of Magadi, a village in Kenya’s Kajiado County.

As the sun set, farmers began worrying about their cattle, easy prey for hyenas and leopards. Children lit fires to finish their schoolwork, filling homes with smoke.

Now as darkness falls, lights flick on across this sleepy hamlet, thanks to the efforts of more than 200 Maasai women at the frontline of a solar power revolution.

The women, trained in solar panel installation, use donkeys to haul their solar wares from home to home in the remote region, giving families their first access to clean and reliable power.

“For us, the impact of solar technology is unparalleled,” said Jackline Naiputa, who heads the Osopuko-Edonyinap group, one of the five women’s groups leading the alternative energy charge in the area.

Renewable energy developer Green Energy Africa provides the group with solar products – including solar panels, lights, and small rechargeable batteries – at a discount. The women sell the products at a profit of around 300 shillings ($3) each, which goes into the group’s account to buy more stock.

Naiputa, who in 2014 lost 10 goats to wild cats, said her teenage son used to spend cold nights in the cattle enclosure to guard their herd. Now, with solar lamps hanging around her homestead, Naiputa and her four children can sleep soundly in the warmth of their home.

“The light scares the hyenas away, so we don’t have to worry about losing our animals at night,” she said.

Women entrepreneurs
The Women and Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy Project (Werep), an initiative by Green Energy Africa, aims to turn Kajiado County to solar power by training women as solar installers and encouraging them to market the clean energy concept to fellow pastoralists.

The solar energy drive began in around November 2014, and so far about 2 000 households in the country have adopted solar technology. Barely seven months into the effort, the area has jumped from zero solar energy consumption in 2006, according to estimates by the government’s Arid Land Resource Management Project, to 20 percent today, energy experts say.

Compared with kerosene and firewood, the cost, convenience, and health benefits of solar are proving hard to resist.

“The nearest market where one can charge a cell phone or buy kerosene is 15 kilometres away, and it is only held one day a week,” Naiputa said.

Before going solar, her household used to spend 40 Kenyan shillings ($0.40) a day on kerosene and over 100 shilling ($1) a week charging the two family cell phones.

As well as saving villagers money, the switch to solar could help slow down the destruction of Kajiado County’s trees, which now cover just 1 percent of the area’s land, according to the National Environmental Management Authority.

And as more villagers choose clean solar energy over wood and coal to light and heat their homes, fewer will suffer the effects of inhaling the smoke that comes with their nightly fires. According to a 2014 World Health Organization report, household smoke was responsible for 1.6 million deaths worldwide.

Solar potential
Edwin Kinyatti, the CEO of Green Energy Africa, said the uptake of solar energy was likely to continue “since it is affordable to most Kenyans,” even though cultural barriers, low literacy levels and difficult terrain had all presented some obstacles to the Kajiado County effort.

Even as the country’s middle class continues to grow, access to electricity remains low, with 68 percent of the population either too poor or too remote to connect to the national grid.

“Kenya has great potential for the use of solar energy throughout the year, thanks to its location near the equator,” said Lamarck Oyath, an energy expert and managing director at Lartech Africa Limited, a technology and consultancy firm. “Yet so far, the country gets less than 2 percent of its energy from solar power,” he said.

For villagers like Naiputa, however, solar is proving a big benefit – and not just because of the clean power it provides.

“Our community customs do not allow women to own any property,” she said. “But now women here own the solar technology, and it is something we are very happy about.”

Leopold Obi for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers humanitarian news, climate change, women’s rights, trafficking and corruption.

South Africa deploys soldiers to anti-immigrant hotspots

 

South African soldiers deployed overnight to tackle gangs hunting down and killing foreigners after at least seven people died in a wave of anti-immigrant violence. (Pic: AFP)
South African soldiers who were deployed overnight to tackle gangs hunting down and killing foreigners after at least seven people died in a wave of anti-immigrant violence. (Pic: AFP)

South Africa sent soldiers on Tuesday to help stop anti-immigrant violence in areas of Durban and Johannesburg where at least seven people have been killed in the past three weeks.

South Africa has been criticised by governments, including China, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, for failing to protect foreigners as armed mobs were shown on TV looting immigrant-owned shops and front-page photographs in a Sunday newspaper showed a Mozambican man being beaten and stabbed to death in broad daylight.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said a Zimbabwean couple were shot in the Johannesburg shanty town of Alexandra on Monday night but survived.

Briefing reporters on the deployment of troops to Alexandra and to the coastal town of Durban, where the violence started, she said: “There will be those who will be critical of this decision but the vulnerable will appreciate it.”

Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini defended himself on Monday against claims that previous comments he made about foreigners sparked the anti-immigrant attacks.

On Tuesday, four men, aged between 18 and 22 years old, were charged in Alexandra’s Magistrates Court with the murder and robbery of the Mozambican man, Emmanuel Sithole, a street vendor in the low-income area.

The men covered their heads with hoodies when they were brought into the court. They are set to appear again on May 4.

Outside the court, protesters picketed and locals gathered.

“It’s not right this thing, they shouldn’t have killed him,” said Fulufhelo Ravhura, a 37-year-old Alexandra resident. “That guy was selling sweets and cigarettes, how was he stealing anyone’s job?”

Periodic outbreaks of anti-immigrant violence have been blamed on high unemployment, which is officially around 25 percent although economists say is much higher, widespread poverty and vast wealth gap.

Hundreds of Malawians marched on South Africa’s High Commission in the capital Lilongwe on Tuesday, demanding charges be laid against King Zwelithini amid calls for a boycott of South African businesses.

Malawi’s Information Minister, Kondwani Nankhumwa, said on Monday two Malawians were killed in the attacks and that efforts were under way to repatriate about 3 000 of its nationals.

In Zambia, two private commercial radio stations have stopped playing South African music.

In 2008, South African troops helped to end violence after more than 60 foreigners were killed in similar unrest as locals vented frustrations, particularly a lack of jobs.