It is time to fix South Sudan s broken healthcare system msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
At the height of the pandemic last April, I saw Facebook posts from friends and relatives in South Sudan showing top-level government officials wearing clip-on tags dubbed “virus removal cards”. The cards were said to contain chemicals that could prevent COVID-19.
President Salva Kiir; his deputy, Riek Machar; Defence Minister Angelina Teny; and other ministers were all spotted wearing the cards.
I wasn’t entirely surprised that a clever entrepreneur was out to make money from the pandemic. In Juba, the cards were selling for between $20 and $30. Elsewhere, similar cards were being sold in Japan, Lebanon, and the Philippines.
2021-04-09 17:55:44 GMT2021-04-10 01:55:44(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
JUBA, April 9 (Xinhua) Several South Sudanese health workers are more willing to take risks to fight COVID-19 after receiving AstraZeneca s COVID-19 vaccine. The world s youngest nation on Monday started vaccinating health workers, including elderly people above 60 years as part of efforts to curb the spread of the virus.
On March 25, Juba received 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility. The country is expected to receive a total of 732,000 doses of vaccines within the first six months of 2021.
Jawahir Awad Lemi, a nurse at Juba Teaching Hospital which is one of the vaccination centers, said she is no longer afraid of catching the novel coronavirus after receiving her jab. I am not worried about coronavirus because the vaccine gives us protection, Lemi told Xinhua on Friday in Juba.