Africa’s wild polio-free status to be determined in August

Humanitarian crises, including health emergencies affect men and women differently. As COVID-19 continues to spread in Africa, there are concerns over its impact on women and girls, with vulnerabilities feared to worsen as the pandemic overwhelms health systems.
Although overall in the African Region, women account for around 40% of COVID-19 cases, this ranges from 35% in some countries to over 55% in South Africa.
“We are already seeing that the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls is profound. Women are disproportionately affected by lockdowns and this is resulting in a reduced access to health services,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa.
As efforts are focused on curbing the spread of COVID-19, essential services such as access to sexual and reproductive health services have been disrupted. According to preliminary data, in Zimbabwe, the number of caesarean sections performed decreased by 42% between January and April 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. The number of live births in health facilities fell by 21%, while new clients on combined birth control pills dropped by 90%. In Burundi, initial statistics show that births with skilled attendants fell to 4749 in April 2020 from 30 826 in April 2019.
Recent analysis published in the Lancet Global Health suggests that a reduction in maternal health services of between just 9.8-18.5% could lead to as many as 12 200 additional maternal deaths over six months in low- and middle-income countries.
The economic hardship due to COVID-19 is also greater for women according to a World Bank report. Informal workers, most of whom are women, account for more than 90% of the labour force in sub-Saharan Africa. Informal sector jobs are particularly at risk during the pandemic.
In addition, women face a higher risk of gender-based violence in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. A recent study by UN Women found that reports of violence against women, and particularly domestic violence, have increased in several countries as security, health, and financial worries create tensions and strains accentuated by the cramped and confined living conditions of lockdown.
“We are working with governments and partners to find ways to continue to deliver essential services safely, including the provision of personal protective equipment to health workers, many of whom are nurses and are women,” said Dr Moeti.
The burden of caring for the sick is also largely borne by women. Most health workers in Africa are women. Over the past four months, with the Colleges of Nursing in Africa WHO has provided targeted virtual trainings to over 1000 nurses and midwives. In West Africa, this training has been cascaded sub-nationally using virtual platforms – thus allowing as many nurses as possible to be trained in case management for COVID-19 and infection prevention and control.
WHO works to improve the health of women and girls in Africa by developing guidance on the implications of gender, gender-based violence, and access to sexual and reproductive health.
In a related statement the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC), responsible for certifying the eradication of wild poliovirus in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region, is set to make its final decision about the region’s wild poliovirus status in August 2020.
Following field verification visits over the past year and thorough critical analysis of the documentation of the polio surveillance, immunization and laboratory capacity presented by the governments of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Nigeria and South Sudan, the Commission has validated that the countries’ documentation grants them wild polio-free status.
In August 2019, the African Region became eligible to be certified free of wild poliovirus, after Nigeria, the last wild poliovirus endemic country, recorded no new cases three years – the requisite period – since it last reported cases of wild poliovirus. The commission had already accepted the documentation of the other 43 countries in the region.
“We are satisfied with the documentation that the four countries have presented. We are reviewing updated reports from the other 43 countries in the WHO African Region and we anticipate that by August 2020, we will deliver our final decision on the region’s certification status of wild poliovirus eradication,” said Professor Rose Leke, ARCC Chairperson.
“This achievement by Cameroon, Central African Republic, Nigeria and South Sudan is a major step towards the eradication of wild poliovirus in the African region,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti. “As the continent struggles with COVID-19, this milestone shows that when leaders, partners, health workers and communities come together we can triumph over the most difficult health challenges.”
If the region is certified in August, it would be the fifth of the six WHO regions to be declared free of wild polio. However, the scale of ongoing circulating vaccine-derived polio outbreaks is a battle the region is striving to win.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), Airports Council International- Africa (ACI Africa) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Regional Offices for African States are united in their call to governments in Africa to rapidly implement ICAO’s global guidelines for restoring air connectivity to ensure the safe and harmonised restart of aviation in the region. These guidelines are contained in Takeoff: Guidance for Air Travel through the COVID-19 Public Health Crisis, which was approved by the ICAO Council. They have also been adopted into the African Union’s Restart and Recovery Strategies during and after COVID-19 for the African Aviation Sector.
“Developed based on the latest medical evidence and consistent with health best practices the ICAO Take-off guidance provides governments with a framework for restarting aviation while protecting public health. Governments in Africa are encouraged to implement the guidance urgently and in a harmonised and mutually recognised way to allow aviation to safely start contributing to Africa’s economic recovery post COVID-19. Air connectivity is critical to economic and sustainable development in and across the continent,” said Barry Kashambo, Regional Director, ESAF speaking on behalf of the ICAO Regional Offices accredited to African States.
“ICAO’s Take-off guidance is a global way forward for aviation. Implementation should give governments the confidence to open borders without quarantine, and passengers the confidence to fly. But guidelines mean nothing if they are not implemented. And that is our main message to governments in Africa. Deviations from the guidance and mandatory approaches, especially on quarantine and social distancing, will damage public confidence, make it harder to operate effectively, slow down the industry restart and increase the economic pressures already created by COVID-19. This would be harmful to public health and the economic recovery,” said Muhammad Albakri, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Africa and the Middle East.
“Safety and security remain the industry’s main priority, and both are firmly entrenched into every airport’s operations and corporate culture. Building on this track record, the ICAO Take-off guidance is fully aligned with our industry’s focus on passenger and staff wellbeing. We therefore urge African States to urgently adopt these guidelines so that we can ensure the implementation of consistent, harmonised and effective measures across the region, a prerequisite for passengers to return to air travel in all confidence, and for the swift restoration of air connectivity for the sustainable recovery of the travel, business and tourism sectors on the continent,” said Ali Tounsi Secretary General, ACI Africa.
COVID-19 has crippled the air transport industry in Africa. Demand is forecast to fall by 58.5% in 2020 year-on-year – the largest drop of all the regions. Airlines in the region are expected to post a net loss of $2 billion this year as passenger revenues decline by over $6 billion compared to the previous year. Concurrently, African airports are expected to lose 51% of their revenues in 2020, i.e., around $2.2 billion. Job losses in aviation and related industries in the region could reach 3.1 million and GDP supported by aviation could fall by $28 billion. Before the COVID-19 crisis, aviation supported 6.2 million jobs in the region and generated $55.8 billion in GDP.
The ICAO Guidance proposes a layered and phased approach to restarting aviation and identifies a set of generally applicable risk-based measures. In line with recommendations and guidance from public health authorities, these will mitigate the risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus during the travel process.
ICAO, IATA and ACI Africa also pledged their commitment to providing support to industry stakeholders in the region to help ensure implementation and compliance with the recommended ICAO Take-off guidance. This includes the development of more detailed operational procedures in four specific areas – Airport, Aircraft, Crew and Cargo – based on the Take-off guidance.
“Restarting international connectivity safely while ensuring that aviation is not a meaningful source for the spread of COVID-19 is not an option but a must. Aviation is facing the biggest challenge of its history; we need all hands-on deck to get the industry up and running again and we are committed to making the journey as seamless and risk-free as possible. We will collaborate with and support states to implement these guidelines in the fastest and most efficient way and encourage governments and other industry stakeholders to reach out to us for support,” said Albakri.
IATA, ACI Africa, ICAO, the African Union, African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), Africa Airlines Association (AFRAA) Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) and CANSO are working closely to support the safe restart of the industry in Africa.

The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights released a new report on the approach to content moderation taken by major social media companies, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The report, “Who Moderates the Social Media Giants? A Call to End Outsourcing,” presents new findings about how big tech firms regulate the content that appears on their platforms; identifies major problems with the platforms’ current approach; and makes concrete recommendations for reforms.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter outsource most of their human content moderation-the job of deciding what stays online and what gets taken down-to third-party contractors, which creates a marginalized class of reviewers who are seen as “second-class citizens.” The NYU report finds that the peripheral status of moderators has contributed to inadequate attention being paid to incendiary content spread in developing countries, sometimes leading to violence offline. Outsourcing has also contributed to the provision of subpar mental health support for content moderators who spend their days staring at disturbing material.
Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights told Capital that the report finds social media companies lack local expertise in countries like Ethiopia. “They should hire more Ethiopians with broad language skills and a solid grasp of the country’s culture” Barrett said.
“Online speech foments ethnic and religious violence and hostilities, one thing social media companies can do is to remove content that is false and may lead to physical harm,” he further added.
Focusing primarily on Facebook, the report found that every day, three million Facebook posts are flagged for review by 15,000 moderators. The company has admitted to at least a 10 percent error rate in making content decisions, which suggests 300,000 mistakes a day. At Facebook, outsourced content moderation takes place in more than 20 sites worldwide.
“The report finds that Facebook and others rely on unpaid local activists and NGOs to monitor online speech, but often ignore their warnings. There have been communication breakdowns and inattentiveness. Facebook says this is changing-that it is listening more closely to its partners on the ground. Perhaps the company has learned from past experience. But all of these problems have not been fully solved,” the deputy director told Capital via email.
“Social media companies cannot cure all societal ills, including the incitement of violence. These companies need to do more to ensure against the misuse of their platforms. But there is a big role for civil society organizations, journalism outfits, and, in some cases, the government, in fostering civility and diminishing the influence of bad actors. Political leaders must come together and get behind education efforts aimed at enlightening social media users and all citizens,” Barrett said.
The report also calls on big tech to invest more in countries like Ethiopia to prevent violence from spreading virally.
“More attentive content moderation and fact-checking, more social media literacy training, and more support for public-spirited journalism and civil society activity should be done,” Barrett said.
In recent months, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated problems with content moderation. As content moderators have sheltered in place at home, without access to secure computers, social media companies, including Facebook, announced that they would rely more on AI to remove harmful content. The result has been that the platforms have mistakenly taken down some legitimate content from healthcare professionals and others, whose posts were mistakenly flagged for removal.
“The widespread practice of relying on third-party vendors for content review amounts to an outsourcing of responsibility for the safety of major social media platforms and their billions of users,” said Paul Barrett adding “the results of this practice range from moderators not receiving the caliber of mental health care they deserve, to real-world violence in some countries where insufficient moderation leads to hateful content remaining online.”
This report involved dozens of interviews with executives from Facebook and other tech firms, as well as with former content moderators operating in the U.S. and Europe; scholars and researchers studying the issue; and on-the-ground activists and NGOs.