What’s Behind American Decline: Domestic Dysfunction

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/S7ND6JdtoU43D5sEkZFwAs8aNos=/960x540/media/img/mt/2022/06/AP22161160480694/original.jpg As the gold­en light bled from the Los Ange­les sky one evening last week, a mari­achi band played at a rooftop cock­tail par­ty for cor­po­rate exec­u­tives and gov­ern­ment offi­cials from a cou­ple dozen coun­tries. They had gath­ered on the eve of the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, an every-few-years meet­ing that would begin in the…

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Odunde festival returns to Philadelphia to celebrate African heritage — WHYY

A small crowd of paraders paused on the South Street Bridge Sun­day to offer gifts to Oshun, the riv­er god­dess in the Yoru­ba belief sys­tem of West Africa. A moment of prayer pre­ced­ed the throw­ing of offer­ings into the riv­er: whole pineap­ples, hon­ey-driz­­zled oranges, can­dy and streams of wine.  The rit­u­al is cen­tral to the Odunde…

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The Brewing Battle Over Africa’s Ivory

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/1‑horizontal-Africa-Zimbabwe-ivory-GettyImages-1231775327.jpg HWANGE, Zimbabwe—Fourteen years since the last legal com­mer­cial sale of ivory, south­ern African coun­tries are lob­by­ing to sell tons of tusks held in stor­age. As these states sub­mit pro­pos­als to the Unit­ed Nations Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tion­al Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra (CITES) sum­mit in Novem­ber, the fate of African ivory…

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Belgian King Regrets Colonial ‘Humiliation’ in Landmark Congo Trip

https://gdb.voanews.com/096e0000-0a00-0242–5b17-08da49a5c77e_w800_h450.jpgKin­shasa, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of the Con­go —  King Philippe of Bel­gium, in a his­toric vis­it to Con­go, said on Wednes­day that his coun­try’s rule over the vast cen­tral African coun­try had inflict­ed pain and humil­i­a­tion through a mix­ture of “pater­nal­ism, dis­crim­i­na­tion and racism.”  In a speech out­side Con­go’s par­lia­ment, Philippe ampli­fied remorse he first voiced two years…

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Pregnant people in Sub-Saharan Africa are at higher risk of complications and death from COVID-19

Preg­nant peo­ple who are hos­pi­tal­ized with COVID-19 in Sub-Saha­ran Africa are dying at a rate far greater than preg­nant peo­ple with­out COVID-19 and non-preg­nant peo­ple with COVID-19, accord­ing to a new mul­ti­cen­ter study encom­pass­ing six African coun­tries. The research was pub­lished today in Clin­i­cal Infec­tious Dis­eases and led by a Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh School of Pub­lic Health infec­tious dis­eases epidemiologist.

The effects of COVID-19 on preg­nan­cy have been stud­ied in detail in high-income coun­tries, such as the U.S., but stud­ies of sim­i­lar size and scope are lack­ing in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries and non-West­ern set­tings. The new find­ings con­firm that preg­nant peo­ple are at high­er risk of com­pli­ca­tions and death from COVID-19 and, there­fore, should be pri­or­i­tized with oth­er high-risk peo­ple for COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion in Sub-Saha­ran Africa.

Our find­ings indi­cate that hos­pi­tal­ized preg­nant women with COVID-19 in Sub-Saha­ran Africa have two to five times greater risk of need­ing inten­sive care and dying than unin­fect­ed, hos­pi­tal­ized preg­nant women. We must urgent­ly pri­or­i­tize preg­nant women among at-risk pop­u­la­tions in COVID-19 vac­cine pro­grams in Africa.”

Jean B. Nachega, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., lead author, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of infec­tious dis­eases and micro­bi­ol­o­gy and epi­demi­ol­o­gy at Pitt Pub­lic Health

The large study looked at out­comes of over 1,300 female patients of child-bear­ing age who were hos­pi­tal­ized between March 2020 and March 2021 in one of six coun­tries: the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of the Con­go, Ghana, Kenya, Nige­ria, South Africa and Ugan­da. Specif­i­cal­ly, this study looked at three cat­e­gories: preg­nant women with COVID-19, non-preg­nant women with COVID-19 and preg­nant women with­out COVID-19.

Researchers found that the rates of inten­sive care unit (ICU) admis­sion and use of sup­ple­men­tal oxy­gen were at least two-fold high­er and the death toll increased five-fold in the preg­nant women with SARS-CoV­‑2.

Relat­ed Sto­ries­Sub-Saha­ran Africa also has high­er rates of tuber­cu­lo­sis (TB) and HIV than the U.S., and pub­lished stud­ies on COVID-19 among peo­ple with these chron­ic infec­tions have had con­flict­ing results, so the team also inves­ti­gat­ed the impact of these infec­tions on their study pop­u­la­tion. Among the par­tic­i­pants, both preg­nant and non-preg­nant women with HIV or a pri­or his­to­ry of TB had a two-fold increased risk of ICU admission.

“The bur­den of TB and HIV infec­tions in Africa adds to the risk of severe COVID-19 dur­ing preg­nan­cy,” said coau­thor John W. Mel­lors, M.D., chief of the Divi­sion of Infec­tious Dis­eases in Pit­t’s School of Med­i­cine. “This fur­ther under­scores the impor­tance of COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion as part of pre­na­tal care.”

Nachega, who splits his time between Pitt Pub­lic Health and a fac­ul­ty posi­tion at Stel­len­bosch Uni­ver­si­ty in South Africa, not­ed recent progress on increas­ing the COVID-19 vac­cine sup­ply in Africa but empha­sized that COVID-19 vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy and mis­in­for­ma­tion about pub­lic health guid­ance is a glob­al issue, and Africa is no excep­tion. In an edi­to­r­i­al pub­lished along­side the study, Nachega and fel­low researchers empha­sized that tar­get­ing COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions to this pop­u­la­tion is key in improv­ing moth­er and infant outcomes.

“COVID-19 vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy and low vac­cine uptake in preg­nan­cy include mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion pro­mot­ed on social media and oth­er plat­forms, which mis­lead the pub­lic about side effects, such as infer­til­i­ty and poten­tial fetal harm,” Nachega said. “Along with devot­ing resources to pro­mot­ing vac­ci­na­tion, we must also work to stop the spread of misinformation.”
Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burghJour­nal reference:Clinical Infec­tious Dis­eases. DOI: doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciac294

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Belgian King Returns Mask to Congo in Landmark Visit

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/06/08/world/08congo-belgium‑1/08congo-belgium-1-moth.jpg But so far, the monarch has not apol­o­gized for decades of bru­tal Bel­gian rule dur­ing which up to 10 mil­lion Con­golese peo­ple died. DAKAR, Sene­gal — The king of Bel­gium on Wednes­day hand­ed over a large wood­en mask to the pres­i­dent of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, one of thou­sands of objects tak­en long ago…

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NATO Allies Are Rethinking Russia’s Supposed Military Prowess

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NATO-Russia-Ukraine-GettyImages-1233147336.jpg Dur­ing his decade and a half at the Pen­ta­gon, Christo­pher Skalu­ba read count­less reports and assess­ments on the Russ­ian mil­i­tary and how it squared up against NATO forces. Now that he has left and has watched Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine fal­ter for months, he has a new mes­sage for defense plan­ners: “Every sin­gle one…

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