EAST AFRICAN NEWS

Fate and fortune have a mystic way of placing people in paths they never anticipated. Paths that either overrun or streamline their life. This could not be truer for Dr Loice Ombajo, the head of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Kenyatta National Hospital. Never in the 15 years of her …

Trials of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will resume after being paused due to a reported side effect in a patient in the UK. On Tuesday, AstraZeneca said the studies were being paused while it investigated whether the adverse reaction was linked with the vaccine. But on …

September 2020 BBC; France has reported a record daily increase in coronavirus cases as the country struggles to contain a fresh surge in infections.On Saturday health authorities said there were 10,561 new cases, rising by more than 1,000 from Friday’s figures. The numbers of people admitted to hospital and intensive …

September 2020 theStar; A firm that got over Sh1 billion contracts for Covid-19 medical supplies is at the centre of the Sh63 billion medical kits scandal that senators say was conceived like a criminal enterprise. A damming report by the Senate says Megascope Healthcare Ltd — a firm associated with Richard Ngatia — was …

AstraZeneca has paused all clinical trials of the Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with Oxford university after a participant in the UK section of the study suffered a suspected serious adverse reaction. The UK-based drugmaker voluntarily put the trial on hold after the discovery of the sick participant, who fell …

September 2020 Dailynation ; Governors Tuesday resolved to procure medical supplies from other sources other than the government drug supplies agency, which they said was now unable to cater for their needs. The resolution, following an extraordinary Council of Governors meeting, comes after a sustained push to quash the monopoly …

September 2020 MobileHealthNews; French digital firm Withings today announced that its latest wearable is available in Europe, after receiving the CE marking for medical devices. Developed by cardiologists and sleep experts, Withings says that ScanWatch is the world’s first clinically validated hybrid smartwatch to detect both atrial fibrillation (AFib) and …

September 2020 Aljazera; A “shocking” 7,000 health workers have died globally after contracting coronavirus, a new report by Amnesty International has said, highlighting the failure to adequately protect those on the front lines in the months-long battle against the pandemic. The prominent rights watchdog said on Thursday the death toll …

September 2020 YahooNews; Antibodies that people make to fight coronavirus last for at least four months after diagnosis and do not fade quickly as some earlier reports suggested, scientists have found. Tuesday’s report, from tests on more than 30,000 people in Iceland, is the most extensive work yet on the immune …

August 2020 DailyNation; Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe and Principal Secretary Susan Mochache on Saturday pushed back against claims that they were complicit in the theft of funds allocated to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. After a week that saw Ministry of Health officials and management of Kenya Medical Supplies Agency …