Workers prepare face shields from recycled plastics at the Zaidi Recyclers workshop as a measure to stop the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania May 21, 2020. Photo Reuters/Stringer

Tanzania has installed medical oxygen production plants in its biggest national hospitals to serve intensive care ward patients, including those ill with coronavirus, its health ministry said on Friday.

The plants, which can produce medical oxygen to fill 200 cylinders a day, were installed in seven referral hospitals in a World Bank-backed project, the statement said.

The statement noted that demand for medical oxygen had increased following the oubreak of COVID-19 in the country, whose former President John Magufuli was Africa's most prominent coronavirus sceptic. Magufuli died in March.

Earlier this month, President Samia Suluhu Hassan shifted the country's approach to COVID-19 from the controversial stances of her predecessor by announcing she was forming a committee to research whether Tanzania should follow the course taken by the rest of the world against the pandemic. read more

And on Sunday Hassan said that while that committee continues its work, Tanzanians should follow the public health guidelines for COVID-19 prevention advised globally, namely mask wearing and washing hands. She called on religious leaders to help educate the public on this.

Magufuli died last month after weeks of speculation that he was ill with COVID-19. He urged Tanzanians to shun mask-wearing and denounced vaccines as a Western conspiracy, frustrating the World Health Organization. Tanzania stopped reporting coronavirus data in May 2020. - Reuters

LEADING BY EXAMPLE: Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho takes the Covid-19 jab on Tuesday, March 23, 2021. Image JOHN CHESOLI

Twenty-three people suffering from Covid-19 are hospitalised in Mombasa in critical condition, according to a report from the Health department

“Of the 23 people in intensive care units, eight are at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital,” says the report, which was issued on Monday.

It says that in April alone, Mombasa has recorded 975 cases of Covid-19 out of 10,727 samples tested.

Since the first case of was reported in the county on March 27 last year, 10,691 cases have been reported – 7,267 males and 3,425 females, it adds.

Of the number, 252 were healthcare workers. The county has lost three nurses

The number of people who have been discharged from health facilities after recovering are 2,301.  

Cumulatively, Mombasa has recorded 306 Covid-19-related deaths.

Last week, the Ministry of Health listed Mombasa as one of the regions with increasing cases.

Governor Hassan Joho has urged residents to observe the ministry's guidelines in combating the contagion. - Aura Ruth, The Star

 A laboratory specialist secures samples taken from potential coronavirus patients in Juba, South Sudan, June 19, 2020. Photo AP

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN - South Sudan health officials have stopped administering 60,000 doses of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine that are past the expiration date but still have a shelf life of at least six months, according to the drugmaker and the World Health Organization.  

The doses, which were donated by the mobile telecommunications network MTN and the African Union (AU), arrived in Juba about three weeks ago. 

Dr. Richard Lako, the incident manager for COVID-19 operations at the South Sudan health ministry, told reporters Sunday in Juba that the vaccine is no longer being used. 

"We later discovered the lifespan of this vaccine is just remaining 14 days, so immediately we started engaging because if we start them, we may not be able to finish, so the ministry is now engaging the AU and the team with regards to that effect," Lako said. 

The health ministry is working with the country's food and drug authorities to safely dispose of the doses, according to Lako.   

"Not all medicine disposal can be done easily. Vaccines are very difficult and it has to be handled differently. The drug and food authority already led the policy which, as a ministry, we have to abide by and now engage with the AU and other people to see how we deal with this," he said. 

World Health Organization officials present at the briefing declined to answer questions about the vaccine's expiration date, but India's drug regulator has allowed the vaccine — which goes by the brand name Covishield and is made by the Serum Institute of India — to be used for up to nine months from its manufacture date, rather than the prescribed six months. 

AstraZeneca says its product can be stored, transported and handled at normal refrigerated conditions for at least six months. The World Health Organization website also gives the shelf life of six months for Covishield and the South Korean-made AstraZeneca shot. 

The AstraZeneca doses have been exported to dozens of countries, including South Sudan. 

Dr. Guyo Argata Guracha, the WHO emergency team leader in South Sudan, noted at Sunday's weekly COVID press briefing the vaccine's expiration date is different from the vaccine's shelf life. 

"From the WHO point of view, these are new vaccines, the expiry or it is called shelf life not even expiry date really — actually let it be shelf life, we don't have to talk about expiry date — the shelf life of this vaccine is six months from now. We cannot say it is really expired but we can talk of the shelf life, which is six months," Guracha said. 

The doses donated by MTN and the AU arrived in Juba shortly after 132,000 AstraZeneca doses arrived in the capital from the COVAX facility, a global collaboration that was formed to speed up the production and equitable distribution of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines. 

Lako said the COVAX doses remain usable up to July. He said about 2,000 people — mostly health workers — have been vaccinated in South Sudan. 

The government recently lifted a partial lockdown on the country after registering a significant drop in COVID-19 cases over several weeks, but that doesn't mean the public should stop wearing face masks, Lako said. 

"The cases are coming down but COVID-19 is there, we still have some pockets of reporting areas. We have actually spotted in the last three or four weeks still places like Pariang, Pamet, Nimule, Mapuordit and Agok in particular," added Lako. 

To date, South Sudan has recorded 10,475 positive cases, 10,215 recoveries, and 114 COVID-19 deaths. - Waakhe Simon Wudu, Voice of America