They warn of a significant threat of people contracting both, particularly in Africa, which has 94% of malaria deaths.

Professor Colin Sutherland of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says with heightened awareness of COVID 19, the high fever associated with malaria could be confused with coronavirus.

This could result in malaria patients being incorrectly sent to COVID 19 treatment centers where their true illness could be missed in the vital three-day window for effective malaria treatment.

Dr Francis Kimani of the Kenya Medical Research Institute says advances made against malaria could be reversed if scarce resources were re-directed to treating the COVID 19 pandemic.

The post Important to understand both malaria and COVID 19 appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Ambassador Aurelien Lechevallier, briefing the media yesterday, insisted the doctors view in no way reflect the position of the French 

French Ambassador Aurelien Lechevallier says the remarks by  two French doctors show they should be looking after patients rather than saying stupid things that they know nothing about.

There was a need to test vaccines. 

Currently a decades old  anti-tuberculosis medicine known as BCG is being tested on a limited number of COVID 19 patients in Australia, Netherland and France among other countries.

He says this could also be tested in Africa,

(Take in test clip here)

The medicine needs to be tested in different areas with different specificities.

The post Anti TB vaccine being tested on COVID 19 patients appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The gathering comes weeks after refugees besieged the United Nations High Commission For Refugees offices in Cape Town and Pretoria demanding to be moved away from xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

The Global Refugee Forum in Geneva brings together governments, business and relief agencies.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi says the burden of housing refugees must be shared more fairly.

The number of refugees  driven out by war in Africa and the Middle East, violent drug lords in Colombia and repressive regimes in Asia are now four times more than the people displaced by the Second World War.

The post Burden of housing refugees must be more fairly shared, says UN appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Ben Ali brought stability and a measure of prosperity to Tunisia but he grossly disregarded political freedom and human rights.

There are mixed reactions in Tunisia to the death of Ben Ali.

The North African country is in the throes of a Presidential and parliamentary election.

Tunisian credit Ben Ali with pushing their country into a leading role in Africa and the Arab world.

When his despotism and corruption brought Tunisians onto the streets with  mass protests, he offered to reform and to stand down at the next scheduled election, but it was too late.

The post Ousted Tunisian President Ben Ali dies in exile in Saudi Arabia appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

An audience increasing in number and enthusiasm is waiting for the resumption of negotiations on the future governance of Sudan.

The most involved and therefore the most passionate are the Sudanese themselves.

They are divided between civilians seeking complete change from the 30-year regime of ousted President Omar Al Bashir and the military desperately trying to maintain the status quo by clinging to power at any cost.

The African continent is deeply immersed in the future of its second largest member.

The African Union has taken the unprecedented step of suspending Sudan under its current military junta because of the June 3 slaying of at least 118 unarmed pro-democracy activists.

The AU red card will be enforced until the Transitional Military Council hands power to a civilian led administration.

There is skepticism about  exactly what muscle the continental body can bring to bear on the generals.

However, there is no gainsaying that the AU has at last taken up the role it was designed to in 2002 when it replaced the cosy coterie of Organisation of African Unity  leaders who refused to criticize each other let alone interfere in their affairs.

The AU, following the genocide in Rwanda, determined that it would intervene to stop crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and gross human rights violations.

The reluctance all too often to take decisive actions has undermined the credibility of the body.

Those concerned with human rights are hoping the AU has turned a corner by acting against the Khartoum junta.

When it seemed that the prospect for negotiations had died along with the demonstrators outside military headquarters in the Sudanese capital, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed flew in to offer his services as mediator.

Both military and civilian leaders accepted Ahmed who has built a considerable reputation by making peace with Eritrea and Somalia.

He left behind in Khartoum an official  Mahmoud Dirir who is the source of optimism about negotiations resuming.

Details are lacking, but Dirir does have undertakings from the Alliance for Freedom and Change and the Sudan Professionals Association to call off the general strike which has brought the economy of the country to a standstill this week.

He also has a promise from the generals to release political prisoners taken since the June 3 massacre.

These groups have a mountain to climb.

They have made virtually no progress in talks designed to agree on the composition of a transitional administration leading to elections.

Ahmed is expected back in Sudan this week to continue his face-to-face efforts.

He is understood to have proposed  15-person body consisting of eight civilians and seven soldiers.

The civilian groups have six pre-conditions for a resumption of talks:

The removal of soldiers from the streets of Khartoum and other Sudanese cities;

An international investigation into the June 3 killings;

The release of political detainees;

Restoration of the internet;

Press freedom; and 

The Transitional Military Council accepting responsibility for the attacks on protestors.

Also headed for Khartoum is the United States Assistant Secretary of State For Africa Tibor Nagy.

The U.S. holds a big stick over Sudan because if only recently removed it from the list of terror-sponsoring countries which attract American sanctions.

Nagy’s brief is to get an assurance from the military that it will not again attack demonstrators and to secure an atmosphere conducive for negotiations.

Activist film star George Clooney, who co-founded the watchdog called The Sentinel with former African Affairs Director at the U.S. National Security Council John  Prendergast, says Washington must use political and diplomatic weapons to give substance to Nagy’s mission.

Having been involved Darfur in the early 2000s, when it was the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, Clooney is well versed in the iniquities of the Sudanese military and particularly its paramilitary terror group known as the janjaweed who now go by the more anodyne name of the Rapid Support Force.

The Sentinel is in the business of cutting off the financial stream to groups violating human rights and promoting violence in conflict zones like Darfur

Clooney says the U.S. Treasury must  issue an anti-money-laundering advisory to banks around the world to stop the illicit financial flows to human rights offenders and corrupt officials in  Sudan.

He points out that Washington has done this in Venezuela and Ukraine.

Using the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act, and eliciting the help of allies in Europe and Africa,  Clooney says the Trump Administration can ensure there are consequences for the military regime in Sudan and particularly the janjaweed.

The post Enthusiasm about the resumption of Sudan talks appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The conference comes weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa told parliament his government is working to provide two years go pre-school education to better equip young South Africans for 21st centre challenges.

Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga welcomed more than 400 educationist and policy makers from a score of African, European and American countries to the Africa Play conference.

They were clearly delighted by a rousing  musical opening before going into three days of intensive workshops.

The conference is co-hosted by the Department of Basic Education, the LEGO institute, the United Nations Children’s Fund UNESCO and the Association For The Development Of Education In Africa.

The post African education ministers gather in South Africa for conference on education through play appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The gathering of the world’s richest leaders will focus heavily on Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian sailors in neutral water between their countries.

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, who’ll attend a meeting of G20 peers, and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu will accompany President Cyril Ramaphosa in Argentina on Friday and Saturday.

South Africa’s the only African member of the G20 that encompasses 85% of global GDP, 80% of world trade and two thirds of the earth’s population.

The South African leader will host a summit of BRICS leaders on the fringes of the G20 gathering.

South Africa hands over the chair of BRICS to Brazil at the beginning of 2019.

The post President Cyril Ramaphosa heads for G20 summit in Argentina appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

There were more cases of the mosquito-borne disease last year than in 2015.

The overwhelming majority of these were in sub-Saharan Africa.

The tragic reality of malaria is that every two minutes a child dies of it.

Children under five are most susceptible.

90 percent of malaria cases occur in Africa and 91 percent  of the deaths.

World Health Organization figures show that Nigeria, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique account for more than half these.

The reason for the increase in malaria cases from 217 million in 2015 to 219 million last year are complex.

But finance is at the heart of it.

It takes $6,6 billion a years to fight malaria.

Last year only  $3,1 billion was available.

The post UN fears the world fight against malaria has stalled appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Chairman of the EU summit Donald Tusk says mandatory quotas in ineffective and highly divisive.

The European Union is committed to reach a deal on accepting migrants by June.

Poland and neighbors Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are refusing to accept asylum seekers.

They say they cannot accommodate  large numbers of people from different cultural and religious backgrounds.

In any event, the migrants are more keen to settle in Western European countries.

Tusk, who’s a former Polish prime minister, has his work cut out driving a deal that will ease the pressure on Italy, Spain and other Mediterranean countries inundated with migrants.

The post EU summit wrestling with problem of migration appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The flagship study by the United Nations Childrens’ Fund also finds not enough is being done tenable children to hands digital opportunities.

The UNICEF study on Children in a digital age is the first comprehensive look by the UN at how technology both endangers children and provides opportunities.

One in three internet users is a child.

71 percent of children are online, compared with 48 percent of the total population.

The needs of children vary enormously because the picture changes so dramatically across the globe.

One in 25 European children is not online, compared to three out of five African children left without internet access.

The post Internet both endangers children and provides opportunities appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.