Category: Medical

Turkey has administered more than 103.52 million coronavirus vaccine shots since the country launched a mass immunization campaign in January, according to official figures released Wednesday.

Over 52.1 million people have taken their first doses, while more than 41.1 million are fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.

The data showed that 84.02% of the country’s adult population has received at least one dose of a two-shot vaccine.

Turkey has also administered third booster shots to over 9.6 million people.

Separately, the ministry reported over 28,000 new coronavirus cases, while 248 more people lost their fight against the disease in the last 24 hours.

Some 341,000 tests for the virus were carried out over the past day.

Last week, schools restarted in Turkey amid coronavirus measures. On Thursday, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that random PCR tests would be given at pilot schools starting this week as part of the measures.

Explaining the practice in detail on Wednesday following a virtual meeting of the Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, Koca said that “no action will be taken without the consent of students’ parents during the tests that will be carried out for [medical] screening.”

He reiterated that keeping schools open for in-class learning is their top priority.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.65 million lives in at least 192 countries and regions, with more than 226.2 million cases reported worldwide, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The number of COVID-19 vaccine jabs given in Turkey has topped 100 million since an immunization campaign was launched in January, official figures showed on Thursday.

Over 50.81 million people have received their first shots, while more than 39.5 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry data.

Some 81.60% of the country’s adult population has received at least one dose of a two-shot vaccine.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to over 9.2 million people.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Two key steps against the coronavirus – getting fully vaccinated and complying with the individual safety measures – will prevent new the variants from emerging, according to a Turkish infectious diseases physician.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Dr. Ismail Balik, head of the Infectious Diseases Department at Ankara University, said that the Mu variant of coronavirus – recently reported in Turkey – as well other variants that may emerge are important regarding the pandemic, but there is no need be concerned as they are closely monitored across the world.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Monday announced that two cases of Mu variant were found in Turkey, adding that the ministry does not intend to take any additional measures at the moment.

The Mu variant, which was first seen in Colombia in January 2021, continues to spread in the country, where it accounts for 39% of infections, and in Ecuador, where it accounts for 13% of cases.

Although its global prevalence is less than 0.1%, the variant has been detected in 39 countries to date.

The Mu variant is the World Health Organization’s fifth “variant to watch closely,” Balik underscored, adding that that the virus mutates as it finds a medium of transmission.

The transmission rate of the Mu variant is currently thought to be at least as much as the Delta variant, he said.

Protective measures

He stressed that in order to prevent new variants and COVID-19 waves from emerging, people need to get fully vaccinated and wear mask, observe social distance and follow hygiene measures.

“The increase in the number of cases triggers the emergence of new variants. Vaccination is the most powerful weapon in preventing this,” he said.

Recalling that the number of COVID-19 cases in Turkey has been around 20,000 “for a long time”, Balik said the number of active cases is over 500,000 across the country.

He underlined that with the start of in-class learning in Turkey and the increased mobility, such as the return from holiday to the metropolitan cities, there will be a risk of rise in new infection unless measures are taken.

“We have two weapons at our disposal to prevent further increase in the number of cases; vaccines and precautions,” he said.

“If 80-85% of all citizens over the age of 12 are fully receive the full dose of vaccines, the emergence of new variants and the growth of the pandemic will be prevented,” the physician emphasized.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Health professionals and scientists called on world leaders to take emergency action to limit climate change, restore biodiversity and protect public health, according to a simultaneously published editorial on Monday.

Over 220 medical, nursing and public health journals across the world from The Lancet, the East African Medical Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine to the Chinese Science Bulletin published an editorial in advance of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, one of the last international meetings taking place before the UN COP26 conference in Glasgow in the UK in November.

In a year of COVID-19 and ahead of the crucial environmental conference, COP26, the editorial warned that the greatest threat to global public health into the future is the continued failure of world leaders to take adequate action to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C and to restore nature.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in the editorial ‘the risks posed by climate change could dwarf those of any single disease. The COVID-19 pandemic will end, but there is no vaccine for the climate crisis. The IPCC [UN body on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report shows that every fraction of a degree hotter endangers our health and future. Similarly, every action taken to limit emissions and warming brings us closer to a healthier and safer future.’

According to the editorial, for decades, health professionals and health journals have cautioned on the severe and growing impacts on health from climate change and the destruction of nature, the impacts of which are disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable, including children and the elderly, ethnic minorities, poorer communities and those with underlying health conditions, the editorial said.

‘Heat-related mortality, health impacts from destructive weather events and the widespread degradation of ecosystems essential to human health are just a few of the impacts that we are seeing more of due to a changing climate,” it read.

The editorial warned that while recent targets to reduce emissions and conserve nature are welcome, they are not enough and are yet to be matched with credible short and longer-term plans. The publication, therefore, urged governments to intervene to transform societies and economies, by supporting the redesign of transport systems, cities, the production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, and health systems.

It said such investments would produce huge positive benefits, including high-quality jobs, reduced air pollution, increased physical activity and improved housing and diet.

Better air quality alone would realize health benefits that easily offset the global costs of emissions reductions, according to the editorial.

These measures are also expected to improve the social and economic determinants of health, the poor state of which may have made populations more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

– More efforts required from wealthy nations

The editorial also argued that sufficient global action could only be achieved if high-income countries do far more to support the rest of the world and to reduce their own consumption.

Developed countries have a commitment to provide $100 billion a year for climate action and a dual focus on mitigation and adaptation, including improving the resilience of health systems by providing funding through grants rather than loans.

‘While low and middle-income countries have historically contributed less to climate change, they bear an inordinate burden of the adverse effects, including on health. We, therefore, call for equitable contributions whereby the world’s wealthier countries do more to offset the impact of their actions on the climate, beginning now, and continuing into the future,’ Editor-in-Chief of the East Africa Medical Journal and one of the co-authors of the editorial, Lukoye Atwoli said.

Source: Anadolu Agency

With ministers and the representatives of relevant organizations from G20 countries attending, the two-day meeting started with a welcoming speech by Italy’s Health minister Roberto Speranza at the historical Capitolini Museum in Rome.

In three sessions, participants will discuss the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, along with the prevention of future pandemics and ways to counter the novel coronavirus.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca will also attend the meeting via video link.

Participants are expected to give a message of strengthened cooperation, solidarity and equality at the meeting, according to Italian media outlets.

The event will conclude on Monday with the adoption of a health declaration.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz

Source: Anadolu Agency

A landmark international conference led by the Government of Bangladesh was held on July 15, 2021, in Dhaka to look at strengthening government efforts for real-time data capacity with a focus on public health during pandemics like COVID-19.

Many developing countries around the world have successfully implemented data intelligence systems that benefited from addressing the COVID-19 outbreak and installed effective management systems for preparing for future outbreaks. However, the scenario is different for many other countries that couldn’t develop the proper data intelligence systems. The high-level virtual event held on July 15 focused on data that informs the process of strengthening and rethinking public health policy in the new normal and featured presentations on working models being used by partners. The event specifically looked at targeted health responses, including management of medical resources and tracking long-term effects of the disease.

Landmark global conference

The objective of the event was to bring governments, development partners, UN entities, the private sector, and academia together to share best practices and exchange views on how to acquire knowledge and tools needed to develop collective data intelligence systems that harness data and technology that can be customized and utilized on a national scale to provide evidence for decision-making, strategizing and ultimately, accelerating COVID-19 recovery.

The historic event was presided by H.E. Mr. Masud Bin Momen, Foreign Secretary (Senior Secretary) of Bangladesh, and Ms. Zuena Aziz, Principal Coordinator (SDG Affairs), and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) of Bangladesh. It was attended by senior government figures including Dr. Gustavo Martin Rosell De Almeida, Vice Minister of Public Health, Peru; Dr. Frank C.S. Anthony, Minister of Health, Guyana; UN representatives including Ms. Xiaojun Grace Wang, UNOSSC Deputy Director for Programme and Operations; Ms. Jacquelline Fuller; Vice President of Google, and other senior medical professionals including Janet Mucheru, Registrar-General, Civil Registration Services, Kenya, and Dr. Samira Asma, Assistant Director General, Division of Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact, World Health Organization.

The conference concluded, among other things, that there is the need for establishing a common data-sharing platform; the introduction of global and local data sharing policies; the development of common data collection formats and conventions for recording data and common identifiers such as Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs). Full priorities are listed below.

Participants also analyzed specific case studies and strategy recommendations pertaining to the use of data to help prepare for more targeted health responses, including management of medical resources. The full list of areas discussed is below.

The social and economic restrictions that have been implemented in many countries to control the virus have exposed and exacerbated inequalities. Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals has stalled, and in some cases may have reversed.

Despite the aforesaid challenges, the Bangladesh government has brought together private sector, civil society, academia, media and development partners from around the world to form an unprecedented partnership and establish a novel, Collective Data Intelligence System for syndromic and mortality surveillance, contact tracing, epidemiological modeling, health response planning, and management.

– Developing countries effectively respond to the pandemic

There are remarkable examples in developing countries that have effectively responded to the pandemic. Rwanda was successful thanks to its pre-existing investments in building a smart data management system; it was able to administer all of the nearly 350,000 vaccine doses it received through the COVAX Facility within two weeks, despite only being given a few days’ notice before the doses arrived. Singapore introduced a state-championed, citizen-driven ‘TraceTogether’ contact tracing system ‘Aarogya Setu’. This was an Indian invention with open-source COVID–19 contact tracing, syndromic mapping and a self-assessment mobile app that reached more than 100 million installs in 40 days and was lauded by the World Health Organization for helping health departments to identify COVID-19 clusters.

In my country, Bangladesh, our Health Ministry has been using a locally developed, intelligent data dashboard that aggregates, integrates and analyses data from government sources, telecom services providers, NGOs, researchers and journalists to pinpoint geographic locations where disease progression is the fastest to conduct epidemiological analysis and prioritize a medical response resulting in COVID-19 hotspots being identified 7 to 10 days ahead of RT-PCR tests, helping to save lives.

Rapid Total Mortality Surveillance offers hope

Rapid total mortality surveillance offers another example of the useful insights data can yield during the pandemic. In the course of such all-cause mortality analysis, multiple data sources are utilized to measure excess total mortality in 2020 and 2021 compared to the preceding years. The focus on total mortality can also capture the pandemic’s indirect mortality burden, which may be caused by disruptions to the access, use and provision of health care services. Data on causes of death can also be mined for confirmatory evidence of the direct and indirect toll in excess mortality associated with the pandemic. In Peru, for example, the National Death Information System (SINADEF) has played an important role in monitoring excess mortality and to track the spread of COVID-19. This electronic system, already in place before the pandemic, enabled Peru to have a clearer understanding of the most affected regions throughout the country.

Beyond COVID-19, the successful deployment of systems that can capture all-cause mortality data can serve as a blueprint for rapid response, such as outbreak response, for countries working with challenges of resource constraints and limited testing capacity. Such challenges can also be addressed with novel data streams and analytics in collaboration with a comprehensive set of partners.

Bangladesh takes bold steps

However, walking the talk will likely be much harder. A case in point is the national ID systems and civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS). Many countries around the world have already been working on these. But despite their well-documented benefits, including more efficient, customized service delivery, emergency relief transfers and potentially forming the basis for shared health records, many countries do not yet have adequate systems in place.

There was consensus among the diverse panel of speakers at the July 15 conference in Bangladesh that real-time data-driven modeling will help predict future outbreaks of diseases and pandemics – and in turn, save lives and the economy.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.

Priorities:

1) Establish a common data-sharing platform.

2) Introduce global and local data sharing policies.

3) Develop common data collection formats and conventions for recording data.

4) Introduce common identifiers such as Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs).

5) Shift from silo to whole-of-government approach to generate data as important policy inputs.

6) Develop data analytics platforms for policymakers to facilitate timely interventions by using frontier technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Open Data and Big Data.

7) Develop capacity for intelligent civil registration and generation of vital statistics to develop policy dashboards in crisis.

8) Develop partnerships among technology companies, health care industries to directly support the health care industry, provide information to policy-makers to safeguard communities.

9) Promote South-South knowledge sharing and learning working across borders by sharing best practices to mitigate the spread, coordinate fiscal measures and boost trade.

Areas discussed:

1) Using data to track long-term effects of the disease.

2) Learning from the evolution of administrative data collection systems, such as vital registration systems, as we move towards modernization of all data systems.

3) How modeling can help predict immediate and future developments such as outbreaks of COVID and studying the potential impact of the spread of new variants of the disease, mass movements of people within countries and across borders triggered by outbreaks, natural disasters, major religious festivals, holidays, etc.

4) Rapid total mortality surveillance and resulting excess mortality data to help policymakers overcome the ambiguities of just measuring cases and deaths linked to the infectious disease causing the epidemic.

5) Advocacy efforts to effectively promote the crucial role of leadership, governance and coordination in the CRVS system to ensure that all stakeholders work collaboratively to ensure that everyone is included.

6) Access data for targeting when compiling the country’s health and socio-economic response measures during the post–COVID recovery and how to ensure that everyone is included.

7) The role of academia in supporting governments to develop strategies and policies to collect and use data to take timely actions during the post-recovery period of COVID-19.

8) The role of public agencies, the private sector, telecommunication operators and academia working together to mobilize the true potential of the “data revolution” to leave no one behind during the post-COVID-19 recovery.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Suspected Islamist militants killed at least 19 people in a raid on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local authorities said.

The attackers looted houses and started fires in Kasanzi-Kithovo near Virunga National Park in North Kivu province overnight between Friday and Saturday, they said.

“I don’t know where to go with my two children,” villager Kahindo Lembula, who lost four of her relatives in the attack, told Reuters by phone. “Only God will help us.”

The head of Buliki district, Kalunga Meso, and local rights group CEPADHO blamed the assault on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — an Islamist militant group accused of killing thousands of people in recent years, mostly in remote areas.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and the ADF could not be reached.

The government declared martial law in North Kivu and neighboring Ituri province at the beginning of May, in an attempt to quell a surge in violence that the military largely attributes to the ADF.

But the number of civilians killed in such attacks has only increased since then, according to the Kivu Security Tracker, which maps unrest in eastern Congo.

Earlier in August, President Felix Tshisekedi said special forces from the United States would soon deploy to the east to gauge the potential for a local anti-terrorism unit to combat Islamist violence.

The ADF was blacklisted in March by Washington as a terrorist group. It has publicly aligned itself with Islamic State, which in turn has claimed responsibility for some of its Attacks.

But in a June report, U.N. experts said they had found no evidence of direct support from Islamic State to the ADF.

Source: Voice of America

Turkey has administered over 84.57 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in January, according to official figures released on Monday.

The country continues its intensive vaccination campaign to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as everyone aged 16 and older is eligible for vaccine shots.

According to the Health Ministry, over 44.37 million people have gotten their first doses, while more than 33.37 million are now fully vaccinated.

Turkey is also administering third COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, and over 6.81 million such doses have been given.

To date, 71.46% of the country’s adult population has received at least one dose of the two-step vaccines.

The ministry also confirmed 18,163 new infections and 165 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, while as many as 16,642 more patients recovered.

Turkey has entered a normalization phase in July amid a nationwide fall in infections and an expedited vaccination drive, lifting almost all virus-related restrictions.

However, seeking to limit the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, the country has suspended flights from Bangladesh, Brazil, South Africa, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, passengers from the UK, Iran, Egypt, and Singapore are required to have a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 72 hours before their flight.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.36 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 207.55 million cases have been reported worldwide, according to the US’ Johns Hopkins University.

Source: Anadolu Agency

At least 28 people were killed when a fuel tanker exploded in northern Lebanon, a medical source told Anadolu Agency on Sunday.

Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hasan earlier put the death toll from the blast at 22 and 79 others injured.

The minister said some of those injured in the explosion were in critical condition.

The tanker exploded in the Akkar region in the north of the country early Sunday, the Lebanese Red Crescent said in a statement.

According to the official Lebanese news agency, rescuers were still searching for missing people following the blast. Circumstances of the tanker explosion are still unclear.

Local media reported that Red Cross teams, as well as army troops, Internal Security Forces affiliated with the Interior Ministry, civil defense teams and residents helped move the dead and injured.

The Lebanese army said it arrested the son of the owner of the land in Talali town where the explosion took place.

Meanwhile, Lebanese President Michel Aoun called for an emergency meeting of the country’s Supreme Council for Defense to discuss the repercussions of the blast.

For his part, Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati said the blast was the result of the exploiters of the country’s fuel crisis.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri tweeted that, “The Akkar massacre is no different from the Beirut Port massacre.”

“If there had been a state that respected people in both killings, the authorities would have resigned, from the president to the last person responsible for this negligence. The glass is overflowing. The lives and security of Lebanese are at the top of all priorities,” he said.

Jibran Basil, the leader of the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, said on Twitter that the country’s “hearts are with the people of Akkar.”

“We commemorate the martyrs with mercy and wish immediate healing to the wounded,” he wrote on Twitter.

Lebanon has been unable to form a new administration since the resignation of Hassan Diab’s cabinet on Aug. 10, 2020, six days after the massive Beirut port blast.

The Arab country is facing a severe economic crisis, with the local currency losing nearly all of its value against the dollar, and streets witnessing massive protests and rallies.

On Wednesday, the country’s central bank halted fuel subsidies that have drained the country’s foreign reserves.

A foreign currency shortage and devaluation of the currency have caused the central bank’s dollar reserves to dwindle from an average of $38 billion at the end of 2019 to its current average of $16 billion.

Official estimates put the cost of the Lebanese subsidy program for basic materials at about $6 billion annually, half of which goes to subsidize fuel.

The bank has supported fuel imports by securing the dollar for importers at an exchange rate of 3,900 pounds ($2.59) per dollar, while its exchange rate in the parallel market in recent days topped 20,000 pounds ($13.30).

Observers say lifting fuel subsidies would raise the prices of other goods and services that depend on fuel to generate electricity for production such as factories and private bakeries.

Source: Anadolu Agency