Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 4, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A5 MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2021 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A 5NEWS I COVID-19 PANDEMIC M OGADISHU, Somalia — As richer countries race to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, Somalia remains the rare place where much of the population hasn’t taken the coronavirus seri- ously. Some fear that’s proven to be deadlier than anyone knows. “Certainly our people don’t use any form of protective measures, neither masks nor social distanc- ing,” Abdirizak Yusuf Hirabeh, the government’s COVID-19 incident manager, said in an interview. “If you move around the city (of Mogadishu) or countrywide, nobody even talks about it.” And yet infections are ris- ing, he said. It is places like Somalia, the Horn of Africa nation torn apart by three decades of conflict, that will be last to see COVID-19 vaccines in any significant quantity. With part of the country still held by the al-Qaida- linked al-Shabab extremist group, the risk of the virus becoming endemic in some hard-to-reach areas is strong — a fear for parts of Africa amid the slow arrival of vaccines. “There is no real or practical investigation into the matter,” said Hirabeh, who is also the director of the Martini hospital in Mogadishu, the largest treating COVID-19 pa- tients, which saw seven new patients the day he spoke. He acknowledged that neither facilities nor equipment are adequate in Somalia to tackle the virus. Fewer than 27,000 tests for the vi- rus have been conducted in Somalia, a country of more than 15 million people, one of the lowest rates in the world. Fewer than 4,800 cases have been confirmed, including at least 130 deaths. Some worry the virus will sink into the population as yet another poorly diagnosed but deadly fever. For 45-year-old street beggar Has- san Mohamed Yusuf, that fear has turned into near-certainty. “In the beginning we saw this virus as just another form of the flu,” he said. Then three of his young children died after having a cough and high fever. As residents of a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict or drought, they had no access to coronavirus testing or proper care. At the same time, Yusuf said, the virus hurt his efforts to find money to treat his family as “we can’t get close enough” to people to beg. Early in the pandemic, Somalia’s government did attempt some mea- sures to limit the spread of the virus, closing all schools and shutting down all domestic and international flights. Mobile phones rang with messages about the virus. But social distancing has long disappeared in the country’s streets, markets or restaurants. On Thursday, some 30,000 people crammed into a stadium in Mogadishu for a regional football match with no face masks or other anti-virus measures in sight. Mosques in the Muslim nation never faced restrictions, for fear of the reactions. “Our religion taught us hundreds of years ago that we should wash our hands, faces and even legs five times every day and our women should take face veils as they’re often weaker. So that’s the whole prevention of the disease, if it really exists,” said Ab- dulkadir Sheikh Mohamud, an imam in Mogadishu. “I left the matter to Allah to protect us,” said Ahmed Abdulle Ali, a shop owner in the capital. He attributed the rise in coughing during prayers to the changing of seasons. A more important protective fac- tor is the relative youth of Somalia’s people, said Dr. Abdurahman Abdul- lahi Abdi Bilaal, who works in a clinic in the capital. More than 80 per cent of the country’s population is under age 30. “The virus is here, absolutely, but the resilience of people is owing to age,” he said. It’s the lack of post-mortem investi- gations in the country that are allow- ing the true extent of the virus to go undetected, he said. The next challenge in Somalia is not simply obtaining COVID-19 vac- cines but also persuading the popula- tion to accept them. That will take time, “just the same as what it took for our people to believe in the polio or measles vac- cines,” a concerned Bilaal said. Hirabeh, in charge of Somalia’s virus response, agreed that “our people have little confidence in the vaccines,” saying that many Somalis hate the needles. He called for seri- ous awareness campaigns to change minds. The logistics of any COVID-19 vaccine rollout are another major concern. Hirabeh said Somalia is expecting the first vaccines in the first quarter of 2021, but he worries that the country has no way to handle a vaccine like the Pfizer one that requires being kept at a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius. “One that could be kept between minus 10 and minus 20 might suit the Third World like our country,” he said. — The Associated Press Denial — Somalia’s latest enemy African nation risks permanent future with virus HASSAN BARISE PHOTOS BY FARAH ABDI WARSAMEH / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A woman builds her makeshift shelter in Daynile camp in Mogadishu, Somalia. Fewer than 27,000 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted in Somalia, a country of 15 million people. FARAH ABDI WARSAMEH / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Somali men without face masks pray at the Isbaheysiga Mosque in Mogadishu, Somalia, last month. Places such as Somalia will be the last to see vaccines in significant quantity. India OKs AstraZeneca, locally made vaccines NEW DELHI — India authorized two COVID-19 vaccines on Sunday, paving the way for a huge inoculation program to stem the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s second-most populous coun- try. The country’s drugs regulator gave emergency authorization for the vac- cine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZen- eca, and another developed by the In- dian company Bharat Biotech. Drugs Controller General Dr. Venu- gopal G. Somani said that both vaccines would be administered in two dosages. He said the decision to approve the vac- cines was made after “careful exam- ination” by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, India’s pharma- ceutical regulator. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the vaccine approval a “decisive turning point to strengthen a spirited fight.” “It would make every Indian proud that the two vaccines that have been given emergency use approval are made in India!” Modi tweeted. AstraZeneca has contracted Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, to make 1 billion doses of its vaccine for developing na- tions, including India. On Wednesday, Britain became the first country to ap- prove the shot. India, however, will not allow the ex- port of the Oxford University-AstraZ- eneca vaccine for several months, Adar Poonawalla, Serum Institute’s CEO, said Sunday. The ban on exports means that poorer nations will probably have to wait a few months before receiving their first shots. The move was made to ensure that vulnerable populations in India are protected and to prevent hoarding, Poo- nawalla said in an interview with The Associated Press. But questions have been raised by health experts over the vaccine de- veloped by Bharat Biotech. They point out that clinical trials began only re- cently, making it almost impossible for the firm to have analyzed and submit- ted data showing that its shots are ef- fective in preventing illness from the coronavirus. India has confirmed more than 10.3 million cases of the virus, second in the world behind the U.S., though its rate of infection has come down significantly from a mid-September peak. It also has reported over 149,000 deaths. The country’s initial immunization plan aims to vaccinate 300 million people — health-care workers, front- line staff including police, and those considered vulnerable due to their age or other diseases — by August 2021. For effective distribution, over 20,000 health workers have been trained so far to administer the vaccine, the Health Ministry said. But the plan poses a major challenge. India has one of the world’s largest immunization pro- grams, but it isn’t geared around adults, and vaccine coverage remains patchy. Still, neither of the approved vaccines requires the ultra-cold storage facili- ties that some others do. Instead they can be stored in refrigerators, making them more feasible for the country. Although Serum Institute of India doesn’t have a written agreement with the Indian government, its chief execu- tive, Adar Poonawalla, said India would be “given priority” and would receive most of its stockpile of around 50 mil- lion doses. Partial results from studies for the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot in almost 24,000 people in Britain, Brazil and South Africa suggest that the vaccine is safe and about 70 per cent effective. The other vaccine, known as CO- VAXIN, is developed by Bharat Bio- tech in collaboration with government agencies and is based on an inactivated form of the coronavirus. Early clinical studies showed that the vaccine doesn’t have any serious side effects and pro- duces antibodies for COVID-19. But late clinical trials began in mid-November. The second shot was to be given 28 days after the first, and an immune response prompted two weeks later. — The Associated Press ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL AND SHEIKH SAALIQ THE U.S. ramped up COVID-19 vac- cinations in the past few days after a slower-than-expected start, bringing the number of shots dispensed to about 4 million, government health offi cials said Sunday. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, also said on ABC’s This Week that president-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to administer 100 million shots of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office is achievable. And he rejected President Donald Trump’s false claim on Twitter that coronavirus deaths and cases in the U.S. have been greatly exaggerated. “All you need to do ... is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths,” Fauci said on NBC’s Meet the Press. The U.S. death toll has climbed past 350,000, the most of any country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, while more than 20 million people nationwide have been infected. States have reported record numbers of cases over the past few days, and funeral homes in Southern California are being inundated with bodies. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the pandemic is getting worse in his city as the virus spreads rapidly within households and people let their guard down with news of a vaccine’s arrival. “This is a virus that preys off of our weakness, preys off of our exhaustion,” he said on CBS’ Face the Nation. Experts believe that the real num- bers of U.S. deaths and infections are much higher and that many cases were overlooked, in part because of insuf- ficient testing. Fauci said he has seen “some little glimmer of hope” after 1.5 million doses were administered in the previ- ous 72 hours, or an average of about 500,000 per day, a marked increase in vaccinations. He said that brings the total to about 4 million. He acknowledged the U.S. fell short of its goal of having 20 million doses shipped and distributed by the end of December. “There have been a couple of glitches. That’s understandable,” Fauci said. “We are not where we want to be, there’s no doubt about that.” But he expressed optimism that the momentum will pick up by mid- January and that ultimately the U.S. will be vaccinating 1 million people a day. Biden’s “goal of vaccinating 100 million people in the first 100 days is a realistic goal,” Fauci said. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccine development and distribution effort, told CBS that 17.5 million doses have been shipped. About 13 million of those have been distribut- ed to clinics, hospitals and other places where they will be administered, ac- cording to Fauci. The 20 million-dose goal hasn’t been reached in part because local health departments and medical facilities had to stay focused on testing to handle a surge in cases, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said. And the holiday season meant health workers were tak- ing time off, he said. “I don’t want anyone to think I’m being Pollyannish here. There’s what we delivered, and we hope that those will be translated into vaccinations. That has not occurred to the way that we would like,” Adams said on CNN’s State of the Union. On Sunday morning, Trump falsely tweeted that the outbreak has been “far exaggerated” because of the Cen- ters for Disease Control and Preven- tion’s “ridiculous” methodology. He complained, too, that Fauci has been credited by the news media with doing “an incredible job” when Fauci “works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work.” Fauci and others are warning that an additional surge is likely because of holiday gatherings and the cold weather keeping people indoors. Arizona on Sunday reported a one- day record of more than 17,200 new cases, eclipsing the previous mark of about 12,000 set in early December. Health officials said the jump appears to reflect infections from Christmas gatherings but was also probably inflated by a reporting lag over New Year’s weekend. — The Associated Press Fauci says Biden’s goal for vaccine achievable Rejects Trump’s claim of exaggerated deaths GARY D. ROBERTSON A_05_Jan-04-21_FP_01.indd A5 2021-01-03 9:48 PM ;