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Vagina rings to curb HIV, the new normal

Staff Reporter
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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

With more than 40 million people living with the Human Immune Virus (HIV) worldwide, the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) has come up with an ingenious way of curbing the spread of HIV.

Dr. Zeda Rosenberg the founder and chief executive officer of the IPM has been working on a four year project on how women can help in curbing the spread of the virus.

Vagina rings embedded with antiretroviral drugs are expected to assist in limiting the spread of HIV since close to 60 percent of all adults living with HIV are women.

“Vagina rings are the new method of preventing HIV. So the vagina ring stays in the vagina for one month within that time it will be releasing antiretroviral drugs.

Apart from filling the HIV modality gap the vagina ring reduces HIV by 35 percent. It’s a wonderful prevention method although many women are still fearful, it is safe.

Most women who have used the vagina ring said it’s comfortable and doesn’t affect them during sex and their partners were comfortable with it.

However, in terms of taking antiretroviral drugs and using the vagina ring at the same time it’s either one uses the pill or the vagina ring because we haven’t done the research on that.

Moreso, the vagina ring does not affect fertility so people need to take contraceptives however, it doesn’t have any hormonal effects,” said Dr. Rosenberg.

Although the vagina ring is not yet available in many countries due to regulations, Dr. Rosenberg also pointed out that the reduction of HIV can even be higher if it is used appropriately.

South Africa liquor traders bemoan alcohol ban

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – Following the suspension of the sale and distribution of alcohol by the government more than two weeks ago, much of South Africa’s liquor traders are now crying foul.

Prior to the suspension, the country’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, didn’t give a heads up like what he did with the first suspension. The suspension was instigated immediately after he announced it.

This has left many liquor traders in limbo especially the tavern owners who operate mainly in the townships.

“Most tavern owners rely on alcohol sales as this is their only source of income. Already 50 percent of the tavern owners have said they won’t be able to reopen their taverns when the suspension is lifted due to financial constraints.

Government is not caring it’s not listening to us COVID-19 is going to pass and people are going to be left without a source of income, government is not being considerate.

However, we have decided to raise R100 million (US$6 million) for our members since the government is not willing to assist us.

We hope to give each tavern owner a relief package of R20 000 (US$1 200) and groceries for three months,” said Lucky Ntimame, Convenor of the National Traders Council of South.

Prior to the suspension, many tavern owners had already stoke piled their liquor with some having had to borrow funds to purchase the stoke which has now left them in a huge financial impediment.

According to the government, the suspension of the distribution and sale of liquor is aimed at unburdening the country’s trauma and ICU units.

“All international games for Zimbabwe are off”

Staff Reporter
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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – The Zimbabwe Rugby Union (ZRU) has cancelled all its international games due to COVID-19.

“Most of our tournaments and International games are sponsored by World Rugby and Rugby Africa. These have all been cancelled. They are two tournaments which take place in December for the sevens in Dubai and Capetown and these have not been formally cancelled. At the moment all International games for Zimbabwe are off. 

However, we are continuing to monitor the situation and will get advise from our medical team led by Dr. Austin Jeans as well as the SRC. Should the situation  and funds permit, we may conduct a tour to the Netherlands at the end of the year for the Zimbabwe Sables or at the beginning of the year.

Moreso, we can only conduct local tournaments once the green light comes from the SRC. Should this happen, we will mainly conduct localized tournaments which will be confined to the provinces .

COVID-19 has put all our rugby developments on hold. It’s a major set back but we are not alone and all the other rugby playing nations in Africa face the same situation. We have applied to the SRC to at list begin education and training in the provinces. This has obviously been overtaken by the new lockdown rules. So we will have to wait for a more opportunistic time.

Our strengths and conditioning teams have been encouraged to give national players off season trainning schedules and we hope this can keep us warmed up and ready to begin playing when the time is right,” said the ZRU president.

Malaria threatens thousands of African lives

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

According to the CEO of Goodbye Malaria, Sherwin Charles, more than 800 000 people in Africa could lose their lives if stringent measures are not taken in curbing malaria.

Charles said too much attention was now being fostered upon COVID-19 forgetting that malaria is also another pandemic.

“More than 800 000 people could die from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa this year if we continue to channel all the resources towards COVID-19.

We thought we were going to end malaria by 2030 as evidenced by the progress being made in countries like South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe but COVID-19 has disrupted that.

Malaria is fully treatable and can be fully eliminated if the cause is fully supported like with the initiative that we are witnessing with COVID-19.

With the rainy season looming we need to show the world the same urgency needed in combating the epidemic like COVID-19,” said Sherwin.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) every two minutes a child dies of malaria and each year, more than 200 million new cases are recorded.

Globally, malaria is responsible for approximately two million deaths per year with 90 percent of the casualties coming from Africa and most of these are children under five years old.

Dangarembga returns to the limelight

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Dangarembga returns to the limelight

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – After close to 25 years since she was last involved in the making of a feature film, Tsitsi Dangarembga, the internationally acclaimed writer, film director and activist has hinted on releasing two feature films and a series.

 “I am currently fundraising for two feature films which are ready to go into production and one series which is ready to go into pre-production. I also have a couple of other scripts which are in late development,” said Dangarembga.

However, despite the tenacity she has shown and the amount of energy she has contributed in the film sector, Dangarembga is not that optimistic about the local film industry.

“Globally the film industry is burgeoning however, this is not the case in Zimbabwe. Prospects for the film industry in Zimbabwe are poor, like everything else, a film industry can only flourish where there is political will to have a flourishing professional industry. This is not the case in Zimbabwe. 

Here everything is run on political patronage or on development lines.  Both practices ensure that no film industry can flourish.  Therefore, we have to see the lack of a film industry in Zimbabwe as being by design of all those institutions which currently finance film in the country,” said Dangarembga.

Dangarembga is well known for her involvement in the 90s films such as Neria and Everyone’s Child which many Zimbabweans still reckon.

Contentions over South Africa’s US$4.3 billion dollar loan

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Johannesburg, South Africa – The recently unveiled US$4.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has created a lot of contention within the South African midst.

Although the loan is aimed at stimulating part of the country’s US$30 billion COVID-19 economic package, many have seen it as a wrong turn by the government.

“We are not in approval of the IMF loan because we look at the history of their loans in Africa with their structural adjustment programs which cripple country’s economies like in the case of Zimbabwe.

These structural adjustment programs also create dictatorships. Another thing, loans of this magnitude tend to spill out to other future generations so this IMF loan is  not a victory,” said Alex Mashilo, South African Communist Party (SACP)’s national spokesperson.

The third largest political party in the country, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement that this was the “biggest political blunder the ANC has made since 1994.”

Lumkile Mondi a senior lecturer at the School of Economics and Business Science at the University of the Witwatersrand also castigated the move and highlighted that corruption was looming, “the ANC is on a looting spree.”

However, National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane, said the loan was going to serve its purpose as they will be keeping a close eye on it.

Youthfulness attributed to South Africa’s low mortality rate

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – Prof. Salim Abdool Karim, chairperson of the Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee has attributed South Africa’s low COVID-19 mortality rate to the youthful nature of much of the country’s population.

More than a third of the country’s populace are youths, which has relatively contributed in the low COVID-19 mortality rate as youths are not that susceptible to COVID-19.

Although the country ranks fifth in the world in terms of COVID-19 cases with close to 450 000 recorded, the COVID-19 mortality rate is far much lower at just under 7 000 with a recovery rate of close to 60 percent.

“The reason why we have a low COVID-19 mortality rate is because of our youthful population, also prior to the lockdown, we made sure we had enough beds and ventilators,” said Prof. Karim.

South Africa is expected to reach its COVID-19 peak beginning next month until the end of September.

Local environmentalists credit global lockdown

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Local environmentalists credit global lockdown

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – Some environmentalists have attributed the current global sanitary status to the various global lockdown regulations that are currently in place.

To date, this has seen a significant reduction in carbon emissions and litter which affects much of the global environment.

Animals and plants in the marine and wild have significantly benefited from the low carbon emissions and litter.

“Greenhouse effects cause things like desertification which leads to  poverty and hunger especially for countries that rely on Agriculture as the backbone of their economy like most countries in Africa.

So the various global lockdown regulations have done more good in terms of the reduction of pollution through chlorofluorocarbons thereby giving the ozone layer time to heal.

Some scientists actually argue that if the situation of these various lockdown regulations remains till 2030, there might be a full restoration of the ozone layer,” said Tafadzwa Machamire, an environmentalist.

Lawrence Mashungu, a climate scientist, also acknowledged the role of the various global lockdown regulations in mitigating climate change.

“In terms of carbon emissions there has been reduced economic activities which drive the emissions largely in industries and of course the transport sector.

Moreso, Zimbabwe recently launched the National Renewable Energy and the Biofuels Policy which is a good gesture pointing to the future powered by Renewable Energy.

In addition to that, the government has also developed the Low Emission Development Strategy pointing to the green future,” said the climate scientist.

Cricket South Africa tightens screws on racism

Staff Reporter
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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Johannesburg, South Africa – Following former South Africa’s senior cricket “Proteas” fast bowler, Makhaya Ntini’s testimonial on racism, Cricket South Africa (CSA) has decided to intensify its prowess on the issue.

Ntini was the first ethnically black player to play for the Proteas from 1998 to 2009. During that time, he went through a lot of racism which made him feel inferior and small. Regardless of that, Ntini continued to execute his national duties spectacularly.

However, Dr. Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, Independent Director and Transformation Chair of CSA said they were going to take stringent measures against any form of racism.

“I cried when I heard the testimony of Makhaya unfortunately what happened to him is still happening because people are not being held accountable. We need to change that and we have the power to do that, we need to create a sense of belonging,” said Dr. Kula-Ameyaw.

The issue of racism in South African sports is still rampant especially in sporting activities such as cricket and rugby. Current South Africa’s rugby captain, Siya Kolisi also spoke out on going through racism within the rugby midst.

Ramaphosa’s woes as public schools are closed for four weeks

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – Yesterday President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the closure of  public schools for four weeks.

Prior to the announcement, all schools were allowed to reopen on the eight of June through a gradual phasing in of grades but due to public outcry as a result of  COVID-19 which has infected 408 052 with 6 093 succumbing to it, the President saw it befitting to temporarily close all public schools.

“The health and wellbeing of learners and educators is critical. The Ministry of Basic Education met with more than 60 stakeholders although it was difficult to find a consensus we have decided that all public schools should close for four weeks from the 24th of July to the 27th of August.

Grade 7 and 12 learners will close on the 27th of this month. Grade 12 learners will have a one week break and return back on the third of August and grade 7 learners will have a two week break and come back on the 10th of August.

The academic year will also be extended beyond 2020. We want to make sure schools don’t become areas of transmission,” said the President.

Although many parents were calling for government to follow in the footsteps of countries like Kenya and Nigeria which have already suspended their 2020 academic year, contentions have now risen on why only public schools should be temporarily closed whilst the private schools remain open.

However, Hubert Mweli, Director-General of the Department of Basic Education said there wasn’t anything sinister about the President’s announcement.

“There are 23 400 public schools and 1 800 private schools. The issue of inequality has always been there and it won’t be solved in a week or two.

Moreso, the academic calendar of private schools is different from public schools and some of the private schools had already gone on a two week break prior to the President’s announcement.

Another issue, the private schools are unable to pay salaries if they remain closed which is a different setup with public schools.

We also realised that schools cannot be entirely closed as they will be prone to vandalism plus the feeding scheme has to continue,” said the Director-General.

However, National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA)’s  Executive Director, Basil Manuel and the General Secretary of the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB), Matakanye Matakanya said they will be seeking further clarity from the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga.

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