KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA Coronavirus cases are exploding in Asia and the Pacific with over 5.9 million new confirmed infections in the past two weeks, more than in all other regions combined, the International Federation of the Red Cross said Wednesday. It warned that the surge is pushing hospitals and health systems to the brink of collapse. Seven out of 10 countries globally that are doubling their infection numbers the fastest are in Asia and the Pacific, it said. Laos took just 12 days to see its cases double, and the number of confirmed infections in India has doubled in under two months to more than 23 million, the Red Cross said in a statement.
Top official gets it wrong: Kenya nowhere near seventh in world for Covid-19 vaccination
Chief administrative secretary Mercy Mwangangi cut an elated figure when she compared Kenya’s vaccination progress to other countries. But the data gives a different picture.
Published on 10 May 2021
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Dr Mercy Mwangangi, chief administrative secretary at Kenya’s health ministry (April 2021)
Two months into Kenya’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, top health official Dr Mercy Mwangangi said the country was seventh “on the leaderboard of vaccination in the world”.
But global health experts said the claim was “difficult” to make, and any ranking should be based on the percentage of the population that had been vaccinated.
Laos records first Covid-19 related death over a year into the pandemic
By Eoin McSweeney, CNN
Updated 12:00 PM ET, Sun May 9, 2021 (CNN)Over one year into the pandemic, the southeast Asian country Laos has recorded its first Covid-19 related death, according to reporting from state-run news outlet Vientiane Times.
A 53-year-old Vietnamese karaoke club worker died from the virus in the capital Vientiane, the National Taskforce for Covid-19 Prevention and Control reportedly said Sunday.
The woman s condition was complicated by diabetes and other medical issues, reported the Vientiane Times.
Laos is experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases since its New Year Holiday on April 14.
For Paola Falcetta, the worst came to pass in the early hours of March 2, 2020. Her motherâs breathing had stopped completely as she lay in the hospital in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. Italira Falcetta da Silva, 81, contracted coronavirus after being admitted for cardiovascular surgery in late January, and was kept in isolation for weeks. By the time she was transferred to a general ward, she was free from the virus but doctors said she had little chance of survival. âShe was not considered for intubation by then. She was old and there were no intensive care beds. They told me: âthereâs no equipment to help your motherâ,â says Falcetta, a social worker. Instead, Italira represented just another of Brazilâs 400,000-plus victims from Covid-19, which shook her daughter into action.
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