Like the rest of the world caught up in the pandemic, Africa waits impatiently for a vaccine.

Baffling the experts, Africa has had comparatively low numbers of infections.

These infections are starting to increase, but thus far Africa accounts for just over two million of the more than 60 million cases worldwide.

Medical experts say there has been an increase in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria as the winter weather closes in.

South Africa, with more than 502000 infections and over 21 000 deaths tops the continental COVID list.

These experts fear it will later next year and perhaps even 2022 before Africa sees widespread distribution of vaccines.

It is unlikely, they say, that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are currently the frontrunners in the northern hemisphere, will be distributed in Africa.

Cost is not the chief obstacle.

According to the International Vaccine Access Centre at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,  the storage and transportation of the vaccine are the chief obstacles.

The Pfizer vaccine has to be kept at minus 80 degrees.

Distributing it requires special refrigerated storage facilities and refrigerated aircraft and vehicles to move it around.

Africa requires a more hardy medication that does not require such expensive care.

There is also a question of safety.

Fourteen years ago Pfizer had to pay compensation to the 11 families in Nigeria’s Kano state who lost children in tests on the anti meningitis vaccine Travan.

African nations responded angrily early in the pandemic to French doctors suggesting Africans would be good subjects for testing a COVID vaccine.

The movement calling itself Africans Are Not Lab Rats has silenced similar suggestions.

However it is undeniable that if a vaccine is be effective in Africa, it needs to be tested here..

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In journalism 101 we were taught never to give the oxygen of publicity to quack remedies for dreaded diseases.

That’s why you don’t read, hear or see about cures for cancer in anything approaching responsible media.

Believe me, these emerge daily from the crazies and the con-artists seeking attention or a fast buck.

So it was to be expected that miracle antidotes to COVID 19 would be flung at editors very early on in the pandemic.

They could safely ignore almost all them –  until heads of state got involved.

Madagascar’s deejay turned President Andry Rajoelina seeks international endorsement of a remedy for COVID 19 made from the leaves of the artemisia which has provided relief to some malaria sufferers.

He could have saved his blushes had he sat in on my journalism cadet course all those years ago.

And the bench next to him could usefully have been occupied by the United States television game show star turned President  Donald Trump who advocated another outdated malaria remedy, the outdated chloroquine,  for curing COVID 19.

That was before he  threw the medical reins between the horses last month and urged COVID 19 patients to inject disinfectant and shine ultra violet light into their bodies.

Time magazine reports the American Association of Poison Control Centres finding a 121% increase in poisoning from bleach and other disinfectants in April 2020 over the same month the previous year. 

Rajoelina cannot match Trump’s lethal milestone. However his angry assertion that the African Union has rejected the herbal remedy known as COVID ORGANICS only because it was not developed by a European company shows he has a sense of the ridiculous every bit as well-developed as his Washington counterpart.

And he evidently shares the Donald’s penchant. for disregarding the media that does not reflect his  views.

How else could he have overlooked the storm last month when two French doctors suggested that the COVID 19 vaccine be tested on poor Africans because they have not taken protected measures?

Doctors Camille Locht and Jean-Paul Mira have had the good sense to apologize for hurt and offense they caused.

The Africa’s continental body was furiously adamant that it citizens would not be used as guinea pigs.

So has the World Health Organisation,  Like the AU the WHO give the thumbs down to COVID ORGANICS  which has reportedly been tested on 20 people for two weeks. Hardly decisive.

Rajoelina can draw some comfort from the favorable attention his peers have given the Malgash remedy.

Tanzania’s President John Magafuli,  who evidently believes that his chemistry qualification  entitles him to be a COVID 19 maverick, sent a plane to collect a load of the remedy  in Antananarivo.

Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Niger  have also bought consignments.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize is quoted as saying South Africa will help test and analyse COVID ORGANICS.

I fully support African solutions to African problems. But this is surely a classical case for caution. 

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They say they’ve driven the Islamist terrorist off  their hideouts on the islands in the giant Lake Chad.

Chad army spokesman Colonel Azem Agouna says Operation Bohoma Anger was launched after Boko Haram killed 100 of his soldiers last month.

52 Chadian soldiers died in the operation that ended earlier this week.

In addition to the 1000 Boko Haram killed, Chadian troops destroyed 52 large motorized canoes known as pirogues belonging to the terrorists. 

President Idriss Deby has visited the area.

He said it was a pity Chad was not supported by neighbors Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon against the jihadis that threaten them all.

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The East African country has 19 patients infected with the coronavirus.

The decision to release the prisoners was taken by the national task force to tackle COVID 19 which is lead by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

The premier has launched a nationwide fund raising drive to fight the spread of the the virus and prepare the nation to deal with a worst case scenario.

Ethiopia, along with Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt and South Africa have been named by the World Health Organization as the African countries that will probably be worst hit by COVID 19 because of the number of people passing through them.

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Chloroquine was praised as a potential coronavirus cure by US President Donald Trump. 

Two Nigerian who tried have ended up in hospital being treated for poisoning.

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The treatment protocol cautiously adopted by Algerian health authorities is highly conditional. They say it has  reduced fever and inflammation in some COVID 19 cases.

Chloroquine is one of he oldest and best known anti-malarial drugs. However the malaria virus has been immune to it for decades.

The World Health Organisation says there’s no definitive evidence of chloroquine being effective against coronavirus. 

There is only anecdotal evidence by  some Algerian doctors.

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With close to 100 cases reported, COVID 19 is gaining a foothold on the continent that has thus far been lightest hit by the virus.

Burkina Faso’s Health Minister Claudine Lougue says the two cases of coronavirus in her country come from a woman who recently visited France.

Her husband is also infected. They are quarantines in a Ouagadougou hospital. A person who has been in close contact with her is under observation.

South Africa’s seven cases put its third on the continental list behind Egypt, which has 54 cases and Algeria with 19. Cameroon, Senegal, Togo and Nigeria have also reported cases.

Worldwide COVID 19 cases increased by 3994 yesterday, bringing the total to 109 578.

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The dead include women and children.

Most of the fatalities are refugees from Nigeria.

According to the United Nations, the camp at Diffa houses more than 250 000 people displaced by Boko Haram terrorists in northeast Nigeria.

For more than a decade, Boko Haram has been battling to form an Islamist caliphate in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Thousands of military personnel and civilians have died in the attacks.

The Nigerian Government has been unable to bring the organisation to heel.

The stampede occurred when the refugees were queueing for food, clothing  and money being handed out by the visiting Governor of Nigeria’s Borno state Babagana Oumara Zulum. 

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Essential for survival in Africa is being able to take the rough with the smooth.

So, after British Premier Boris Johnson told an investment conference in London that  a post-BREXIT Britain would be able to open its borders to Africa there was hardly a blink about US President  Donald Trump tipping off the Wall Street Journal in Davos that he is about to add four African countries to those subject to US travel bans.

Johnson believes the continent with some of the fastest growing economies in the world should be courted by Britain to make up on business it is losing by leaving the European Union.

Trump, by contrast believes there are redneck American votes to be won by adding Nigeria, Tanzania, Sudan and Eritrea to his list of majority-Muslim countries whose subjects find it increasingly difficult to visit the U.S.

Understandably this dichotomy from two of the continent’s oldest Western friends will drive many Africans even further behind the Great Wall of China.

Beijing’s burgeoning links with Africa are based on non-interference in the affairs of the countries with which they are doing business.

This is an extremely attractive quality among those African leaders who undemocratic, authoritarian and corrupt practices and human rights violations put them beyond the pale of traditional European partners.

A very strong message of support came from two of these this week.

France and German celebrated the anniversary of the signing of bilateral friendship treaties in 1963 and 2019 in an unprecedentedly novel way.

In South Africa, they exchanged ambassadors for the day.

German Ambassador Martin Schäffer and his French counterpart Aurèlien Lechevallier  gave an upbeat  media briefing about swapping desks for the day.

They said it was more than a  symbolic nod to the  reconciliation between the two engines of the European Union.

“Without German French reconciliation there could not have been a united Europe,” asserted Schäfer.

It was also a salutary lesson to African about the lasting value of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Both ambassadors noted this was particularly germane  to  South Africa with its troubled history.

The Franco-German example was particularly relevant at this time of commercial tension between the United State and China.

Africa needed a more robust, more united and stronger Europe to be a reliable partner.

“This is the right moment to show the convergence between Germany and France,” said Lechevallier.

“We are moving together with Africa creating investment and economic opportunities.

“There already are many French and German companies creating tens of thousands of jobs and we want South African companies to invest in France and Germany.

“Schäfer added: “It is a simple fact that Europe – and Germany and France are an integral part of that is by far Africa’s biggest read and investment partner.

“We do not come and make a quick buck.

“We come and we stay and we become corporate citizens.”

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They include Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent.

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Three years ago, President Donald Trump included Libya and Somalia among the seven majority-Muslim countries subject to a US travel ban.

The US Supreme court upheld the measure  designed to implement his clampdown on immigration.

At Davos this week, Trump tells the Wall Street journal he is considering widening that ban.

It would include Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania and Eritrea.

An announcement could be made as early at next Monday.

There is unlikely to be a blanket ban on citizens of those countries entering the US. However, it will be much tougher for them to get US business and travel visas.

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The jihadis approached the fishing village disguised as traders.

The attack on the remote village took place before Christmas.  News of it has taken a fortnight to emerge.

Boko Haram was formed in Nigeria a decade ago and and since spread its operations in Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

The victims from last month’s attack are mainly Cameroonians but many other nationals are fishermen on Lake Chad.

An unknown number of people remain unaccounted for.

The island has a become fertile ground for terrorists because the multi-national task force charged with patrolling the area is finding it too expensive and too dangerous to cover properly. 

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