News — Covid

Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer asked South Africa, among a few other countries, to accept indemnity clauses in contract proposals for securing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines. These clauses would indemnify Pfizer against lawsuits relating to the usage of its vaccines.

South Africa was one of a few middle-income countries that were told to put up assets which “could include federal bank reserves, embassy buildings or military bases”, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ). Pfizer hoped that these countries would bear the costs of lawsuits and damages if vaccine recipients have complications.

The BIJ reported that its interrogations of unredacted draft contracts between Pfizer and two other countries revealed that the pharmaceutical company wanted to protect itself against unfortunate eventualities in the supply chain “including packaging, manufacturing and storage”.

Pfizer, who initially defended the plan to force an indemnity clause has so far reneged on this in their dealings with South Africa. On behalf of his government, South Africa’s Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, disclosed last week that his government was “relieved” by this.

“As [a] government, we found ourselves in a precarious position of having to choose between saving our citizens’ lives and risking putting the country’s assets into private companies’ hands,” Mkhize told a parliamentary committee. He pointed out that the proposal had “posed a potential risk to our assets”.

South Africa was a destination of four different vaccine trials, including J&J’s. At the beginning of the year, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, who until recently was chairperson of the AU, indicated that his country intended to lead the charge for vaccine equity on behalf of Africa.

South Africa hoped to come to an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to obtain affordable vaccines for the country and others in Africa. But while Johnson & Johnson undertook a trial in the Rainbow Nation, it made no promises of donating or selling vaccines to South Africa or any other country on the continent. J&J is said to begin manufacturing its vaccine in South Africa and will make about 300 million before the end of 2021.

Mahmoud El-Koumi wanted to find a way that his mechanical engineering would bear fruits in Egypt’s management of the coronavirus pandemic. So the Cairo-based technologist thought of how to minimize the contact between healthcare providers – the frontline army against the unseen virus – on one hand, and patients.

So El-Koumi engineered a robot with the specific task of playing a doctor’s assistant. The remote-control robot was named Cira-03, and when Reuters spoke to El-Koumi in December, he reported that Cira-03 was doing exactly as expected. The automaton can test for Covid-19 and take the temperature of patients, at a private hospital in the city of Tanta. where it is being trialed.

El-Koumi explained: “Before starting its mission, the robot receives training to improve its AI. The training is done by a specialist doctor, the AI in this training acts like a human doctor.”

But Cira-03 is not only taking temperatures and carrying out COVID-19 tests. It can detect your echocardiographs as well as X-rays. All of Cira-03’s results can be seen on a small monitor it has for a chest. The robot is built with a human-like face but without arms.

“This robot is specially designed to help the medical staff during Covid-19 times. It is a medical robot capable of multi-tasks, it can deal with patients in their beds, chest scans, fever screening, and face mask detection,” El-Koumi, 27, added. He was also mindful of how humans would have to relate with his creation and that consideration went into Cira-03’s build.

“I tried to make the robot seem more human so that the patient doesn’t fear it. So they don’t feel like a box is walking in on them. There has been a positive response from patients. They saw the robot and weren’t afraid. On the contrary, there is more trust in this because the robot is more precise than humans.”

Egypt has reported nearly 200,000 cases of the COVID-19 infections but the vast number of people – over 150,000 – are well. The country was also the first to roll out a nationwide vaccination program with support from foreign partners such as China and Russia.

Zimbabwe will allow trophy hunters who are willing to pay up to $70,000 per elephant to shoot up to 500 of the beasts in national parks, in a bid intended to help raise money to sustain the conservatories which the cash-strapped government cannot maintain.

The intention was actually put on paper last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic destabilized plans for tourists to travel to the southern African country. However, this year’s southern hemisphere winter – beginning in June – will see trophy hunters from countries such as the United States going to Zimbabwe.

Officials in Zimbabwe are well aware of the backlash this will generate among conservationists and ecotourists. But a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), Tinashe Farawo, was quoted by Bloomberg saying: “How do we fund our operations, how do we pay our men and women who spend 20 days in the bush looking after these animals?”

Zimbabwe’s elephant population is more than 100,000. Trophy hunters will be charged between $10,000 and $70,000 depending on the size of an elephant they would like to shoot. This program is also seen as a way of controlling the elephant population that has disturbed towns and farms surrounding national parks. The Bloomberg report says the ZPWMA has registered about 1000 complaints so far this year about elephant destruction to crops. This is compared to about 1,500 in the entirety of 2020.

The country’s plans of utilizing the elephant population to make money are not limited to trophy hunting. in 2019, Zimbabwe was believed to have sold at least 30 young elephants to China as drought hit the country. Park officials were reported to have said proceeds will be used to dig more wells to save other wildlife.

That same year, more than 90 elephants were exported from Zimbabwe to China and Dubai, earning the southern African country $2.7 million.

Apart from Botswana, Zimbabwe holds the largest quantity of elephants in Africa. However, the former has also not been spared criticisms by conservationists who have questioned why Gaborone is allowing trophy hunting again after a five-year ban.

President John Magufuli of Tanzania, who has made global news headlines for advocating lax measures in his country in spite of the pandemic, is reportedly in a hospital receiving treatment for a coronavirus infection.

The BBC reported on Wednesday that Magufuli has not made a public appearance in some time, prompting Tanzanians to ask for the whereabouts of their president. However, according to opposition leader Tundu Lissu, the president is on admission in a hospital due to COVID-19, per his (Lissu’s) sources.

Lissu explained that information available to him has it that Magufuli, 61, was flown to Kenya on Monday night but rather quietly. He also added that Magufuli may have suffered a cardiac arrest in his illness.

Nairobi Hospital which is said to be where the Tanzanian leader has been admitted refused to comment on the allegation, the BBC said.

The 53-year-old opposition leader also alleges that Philip Mpango, the Finance Minister who made a public appearance a few weeks ago but was captured on camera coughing unstoppably, has also been admitted at Nairobi Hospital.

Understandable cover of darkness

If Magufuli is truly in a hospital having been infected by the virus, it would be understandable that his treatment is under a cover of darkness. Last year, the ultraconservative leader declared a “victory” of the pandemic because of what he said were the prayers of Tanzanians.

Magufuli’s administration had declared that the country was coronavirus-free. This came after government insisted normal public life would have to go on in spite of suspected increase in cases leading up to the end of last year. Schools remained opened as did churches, the establishments Magufuli credited with the “success” of Tanzania’s fight.

“The corona disease has been eliminated thanks to God,” Magufuli once stated in a speech, apparently because of prayers. The spiritual inclination was not a joke as the government warned the American Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam to stay out of Tanzania’s internal affairs after the American envoy issued a statement in May 2020 claiming that hospitals in the commercial capital were on the verge of collapse due to admitting coronavirus-infected patients.

Magufuli did not only allege foreign conspiracies to undermine his government but also moved to crush faith in Tanzania’s scientific research community. He once stated that “probably, the technicians are also bought to mislead” on infection and mortality rates in the country. The head of the national research unit in charge of understanding Tanzania’s case count and kinds of infection was sacked after his outfit was accused of finding coronavirus in goats and pawpaw.

The government then launched an investigation into “criminal possibility at the national laboratory”. While most African countries placed restrictions on public life, Tanzania did not. Apart from full churches and mosques, stadia were also loaded with soccer fans and continue to be.

John Magufuli, Tanzania’s 61-year-old president, is very much a moralist. He will not apologize for grounding his politics in conservative Christian values and neither is anyone to expect that the former high school teacher would back down.

Magufuli espouses a simplified Aristotelian sense of justice, an equitable distribution to those deserving of good and bad. This notion of justice as fairness and as rightness was integral to his election to the presidency, initially in 2015. It also helped that he marketed himself as an upright Christian man who was very much aware of the biases of his eletorate.

Initially, the man inspired hope, taking his moral politics into rooting out an African problem of rot in the Tanzanian public service. He launched a war on corruption and was unforgiving to those who fed off the labor and mite put in by poor and ordinary Tanzanians. But there were also downsides to Magufuli’s religion-powered politics that saw him make life harder for the LGBTQ+ community in his country as well as propagate the belief that people who employ family planning and birth control are “lazy [people] afraid they will not be able to feed their children”.

Neither of the two unfortunate actions taken by Magufuli can be overlooked, however, treating a deadly pandemic as if is a fight of spirituality and determinedly ruling out scientific measures for saving lives is definitely the lowest point in the presidency of a man with a respectable doctorate in chemistry.

First of all, Magufuli’s administration had declared that the country was coronavirus-free. This came after government insisted normal public life would have to go on in spite of suspected increase in cases leading up to the end of last year. Schools remained opened as did churches, the establishments Magufuli credited with the “success” of Tanzania’s fight.

“The corona disease has been eliminated thanks to God,” Magufuli once stated in a speech, apparently because of the prayers of Tanzanians. The spiritual inclination was not a joke as the government warned the American Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam to stay out of Tanzania’s internal affairs after the American envoy issued a statement in May 2020 claiming that hospitals in the commercial capital were on the verge of collapse due to admitting coronavirus-infected patients.

The US Embassy alleged that coronavirus cases were seriously and intentionally underreported. All that while, Magufuli had been imploring his compatriots to pray and nothing more. Any pressure that came from elements outside Tanzania was deemed adversarial to his government.

Magufuli did not only allege foreign conspiracies to undermine his government but also moved to crush faith in Tanzania’s scientific research community. He once stated that “probably, the technicians are also bought to mislead” on infection and mortality rates in the country. The head of the national research unit in charge of understanding Tanzania’s case count and kinds of infection was sacked after his outfit was accused of finding coronavirus in goats and pawpaw.

The government then launched an investigation into “criminal possibility at the national laboratory”. While most African countries placed restrictions on public life, Tanzania did not. Apart from full churches and mosques, stadia were also loaded with soccer fans and continue to be.

Now, the government is no more sticking to its narrative that COVID-19 has been defeated through prayers. Rather, government authorities are belittling infection rates and advocating alternative remedies including “steam inhalation, and eating fruits and vegetables”, according to Suleiman Jafo, the country’s Minister of Local Governments.

Jafo’s advocacy has actually been sanctioned by Health Minister Dorothy Gwajim, a physician. Gwajim preaches at pressers and on media channels that a concoction involving ginger, lemon, onions and pepper would prevent coronavirus infections.

She maintains that her country has “its own procedure on how to receive any medicines and we do so after we have satisfied ourselves with the product”. For now, Tanzania is rejecting any and all vaccines approved for usage by either the World Health Organization (WHO) or developed countries.

Intriguingly, some government communications give away the impression that authorities are aware of a dire situation. For instance, Magufuli recently accused travelers to Tanzania of “importing a new weird corona”. But there is also a difficulty for a government pursuing propaganda while aiming to force public compliance with preventive measures.

An official of the Health Ministry publicly advised Tanzanians to wear face masks “not because of corona, like some people think, but it’s to prevent respiratory diseases”. The prevention of “respiratory diseases” is the message the Health Ministry is partially running with these days.

While other African countries are working assiduously to procure vaccines while strategically managing infections inland, Tanzania will undoubtedly be behind the curve when the world hopefully nears the light at the end of the tunnel. But obviously, it is within the capacity of a scientist-president to change the impending narrative.

At the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, many people became jobless, especially during the lockdown phase in March when certain businesses had to lay off workers. Twin sisters RaeShawn Middleton and LaShone Middleton are trained chefs from Laurel, Maryland, who lost their respective jobs at a restaurant. Little did they know that one afternoon’s crab cravings would help them launch the only crab delivery service in their vicinity.

Usually, the trick to a successful business is to fill a market gap. In the case of the Middleton sisters, there were no eateries offering crab delivery services in their community so, with their experience as chefs, they jumped at the idea to start their own crab delivery service, R&L Crab Company.

The twins were at brunch one day when they craved steamed crabs cooked to perfection and at the same time, they did not feel like moving out to go and grab any. That was when the idea struck them. Maybe they did not need to drive out to get them, and many people might be feeling the same way and yet would want to savor the crabs from the comfort of their homes.

Being trained chefs who grew up on crabs came as an added advantage when the twins decided to make a business out of it, WJLA reported.

To mitigate the spread of the virus, restaurants were shut down and only takeout shops could operate with little staff. The Middleton twins decided to cook from their kitchen and deliver the crabs themselves.

They began doing the groundwork to launch their business. According to LaShone, they needed to make sure they had items that they would need, including delivery bags. Then it was about letting people know the services they intend providing by creating an Instagram account and designing flyers to be put up in their neighborhood.

The fear of the unknown always makes people fret about a lot of things and LaShone was sure scared of people’s reaction to their new venture.

“I was, like, shaking. I was, like, so nervous ’cause I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, how am I going to – I’m not going to start a business.”

“We went home that day and started making flyers,” La said. “We were shocked to get our very first order that day.”

All the while, the pair forgot one of the most essential things in being an entrepreneur — the pricing of the crabs. It came to their attention the moment an order came while they were sharing fliers. The steamed crabs were priced at $75 for the big ones. The average price on the market is $99 but being new, they needed to win over their customer base, plus their pricing comes with the delivery which makes their services stand out.

“We deliver everything ourselves, we cook everything ourselves, and when we have 20 orders, we split it amongst the two of us.”

The Middletons schedule deliveries from Thursdays to Sundays and they get about 10 orders per week with some ordering about 60 extra-large crabs in one order. With crab season coming up in March, the twins are poised for the orders that might come their way.

RaeShawn and LaShone are looking to expand their venture by saving up to purchase a food truck and sign on to already existing delivery services like Postmates to cater for big orders.

At the moment, all the crabs are made to order and none of them is reheated. The twins are also exploring the concept of “ghost kitchen” where they use the kitchens of restaurants around town to cook the crabs before deliveries.

With no prior knowledge on how to run a business, the pair are grateful the pandemic gave them the push to be business owners and now they want to share their failures and successes on this new journey to inspire others by writing a book.

“We made a lot of mistakes and are still learning as we go but I can say I know how to start a business and it may not be a traditional way, but I don’t think there’s a traditional way to do anything.”

Admittedly, it is terrifying to start a business in the midst of the pandemic but per NPR, the U.S. Census Bureau says Americans are launching start-ups at the fastest rate in more than a decade.

A Coventry-based couple who won a £1 million (around $1.3M) Euromillions jackpot in 2017 made a charitable gesture to hundreds of homeless people affected by the current COVID-19 lockdown in England by offering them a dish that was inspired by a Caribbean curry from St. Lucia.

The couple, 60-year-old Bill Mullarkey and Cath, 59, paired with chef Jim Eaves – a volunteer for the humanitarian aid organization Langar Aid – to prepare the Caribbean-inspired dish, Mail Online reported. Cath happens to come from St. Lucia, so that explains the inspiration behind the meal. The couple, who are also chefs by profession, bought the ingredients for the dish in addition to snacks and drinks.

The couple told the news outlet they were inspired to lend a helping hand to the homeless after they saw volunteers hand out pizzas to lorry drivers who were stranded in the English county of Kent in December.

“I saw the Langar Aid guys on the TV dishing out meals to stranded lorry drivers on the M20 over Christmas. I was inspired and wanted to help them look after homeless people in Coventry,” Bill said. “Ordinarily Cath and I would have gone into the kitchens and cooked everything but working with Stuart was the best way of still making a difference while minimizing contact.

“As Cath is from St Lucia we went for a Caribbean curry. A vegetable and coconut curry with a side order of rice and peas plus drinks,” he added. “We also handed over lots of chocolate bars as treats.”

Cath also explained how they went about preparing the vegetarian dish and also commended the work of the volunteers.

“Jim was brilliant. We chatted through meal ideas, the ingredients because everything is vegetarian, even the cutlery,” she said. “He and the other volunteers give up their spare time and stand out in all weathers; it’s so cold at the moment, a lot colder than St Lucia and I am in awe of the work they do.

“That’s why Bill and I wanted to also give something to the volunteers as well to say thank you.”

This, however, isn’t the first time the couple have provided free meals, Mail Online reported. In 2019, they curated and prepared a three-course Caribbean-inspired meal for 100 pensioners to mark the Christmas festivities.

The couple got to know about their surprising lottery-winning ticket after they received an email from the lottery company. Bill said he was initially reluctant to open the email as he thought it was spam and was on the verge of deleting it until his granddaughter convinced him to open it. He also said he initially saw the email while he was in his wife’s native St. Lucia but was unable to check its content until he returned to the UK after over two weeks.

They initially thought they had won £10,000 (around $13,000) or £100,000 (around $136,000) but received the shock of their lives when they were told it was actually £1 million ($1.3M).

“I got an e-mail when we were in St Lucia from the National Lottery and I just had a look on our return last Wednesday,” he recalled. “I spoke to a young lady on the phone and then waited for a few minutes, which felt like forever, and then she said we had won £1 million.

“At that moment there was such excitement in the house and lots of screaming. We celebrated with a nice cup of tea and I didn’t sleep all night, it just wouldn’t sink in.”

After winning the lottery, the couple had initially said they planned on purchasing their second home in St. Lucia and also helping a nephew who got paralyzed after an accident in the Caribbean nation.

Justin Volpe, the cop accused of beating and sodomizing Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, in 1997, is asking for an early release after contracting COVID-19 in prison. Volpe sodomized Louima with a jagged wooden handle in August 1997 after claiming that Louima had punched him during a fight at East Flatbush, Brooklyn’s popular Club Rendez-Vous, Daily News reported.

Louima was arrested amid the fight that broke out, and reports said Volpe assaulted him while in the police car after the arrest. Volpe assaulted him again later that night at the police station. He then went ahead to sodomize a handcuffed Louima with the wood handle from either a broomstick or plunger, trial testimony and witnesses said. Authorities never found the instrument.

Louima, who claimed he was repeatedly called “n—-r” during the attack and was left bleeding on the floor of a cell, spent two months in a hospital after surgery for his injuries. Reports said he suffered a ruptured colon and bladder, and his teeth were destroyed in the attack. When news of the attack broke, mass protests were held in the U.S.

Volpe, who has since been at a federal prison in Texas for 21 years over the incident, now wants an early release. “I tested positive for COVID-19 and had several symptoms. No medical treatment of any kind was provided or offered,” Volpe wrote in a release filing on his own behalf.

“Please let me have the chance to meet any needs with private insurance and at home with my family’s love.”

Louima now lives in Miami. He said even though he has forgiven Volpe, he will never forget the attack. He believes that it is up to the justice system to decide whether or not to release Volpe. “It’s so many years after the crime. Twenty-one years is not 21 days. I think at least he’s spent enough time thinking about his actions,” Louima told Daily News.

When two lives are at stake and it involves a baby and a mother, the tendency is for the mother to want her baby saved over her life. Monique Jones took that bittersweet decision in early September when she was intubated, and her baby girl’s life hung in the balance. The nurse who walked her through the process is now a godmother to her patient’s child.

Jones was brought in when she reported having shortness of breath and some chills. She did not link it to the novel coronavirus because she is one person who adheres to all the safety protocols.

She washes her hands regularly, uses a face mask and stays indoors except when she needs to pick up groceries from the supermarket. Sadly, according to Good Morning America (GMA), the mother of two tested positive for COVID-19 while she was pregnant.

An adamant Jones did not want to be placed on a ventilator, neither did she want to have a C-section performed on her. “It was possible that I wouldn’t live — that’s all I was thinking,” said Jones. “They asked me if it was possible to take my baby out. At first, I told them no, but I wasn’t getting any better.”

Jones was scared but her nurse, Caitlyn Obrock, gave her the assurance that all will be well with them especially her baby if she gives them the go-ahead. “She was scared,” nurse Obrock recalled to GMA. “I was very invested in her, hoping and praying for a good outcome.”

Doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis had to perform the early C-section to save her daughter, Zamyrah Prewitt’s life. Baby Prewitt arrived on September 28, weighing 2 pounds, 5 ounces at 29 weeks and was immediately rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit where she spent the first two months of her life, WVLT reported.

The new mother was moved in October after she woke up from her intubation to a rehab clinic to work on her occupational, speech and physical therapy. As Jones was working hard to get better for the much-awaited reunion with her baby before Christmas, Obrock raised $2000 in gifts for the family and organized a baby shower for her because she empathized with her.

“The way she started out motherhood with this baby was unfair and we wanted her to know how special and loved she is,” Obrock said. “She’s a miracle,” she added. “Her and her baby.”

A Christmas miracle did happen and Jones and Zamyrah were home in time for Christmas. According to Jones, she made it out of the hospital because she felt as though she was fighting for her family and not herself.

She is grateful to her nuclear family for standing by her through it all and even more appreciative of Obrock for the extra love shown her. Right after getting home, Jones asked her nurse to be her baby’s godmother and invited her to join her extended family, People reported.

South Africa's president has announced a raft of new restrictions in a major city as the nation stares down a possible coronavirus resurgence. 

This has been a tough year for the nation with Africa’s highest coronavirus burden, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged in a Thursday night speech.

But now, as many South Africans plan to embark on a monthlong summer holiday, now is not the time for South Africa to let down its guard, he warned. 

“As we want to relax, this virus does not relax.  And this virus does not take a holiday,” he said.  “This 2020 has been a difficult year for us as a nation and as a country. It has severely tested our resolve and demanded great sacrifices of each and every one of us. But even as the holidays approach, we cannot let our guard down. Unless we take personal responsibility for our health and the health of others, more people are going to become infected. More people are going to die.”

Nearly 22,000 South Africans have already died, he noted.  

To that end, he announced restrictions for one of the country’s major metropoles, Nelson Mandela Bay. The coastal city, also known as Port Elizabeth, has recently seen a jump in confirmed cases. 

The city’s one million residents now must observe a nighttime curfew and are restricted in both buying and consuming alcohol in public. Gatherings are now limited to 250 people for outdoor events and 100 for indoor events. 

He also said that countrywide, post-funeral gatherings -- which Ramaphosa referred to as “after-tears parties” -- are prohibited.

Johannesburg, the nation’s economic hub, is known for drawing people from around the country. During the end-of-year holidays, the city empties out as many residents return to their families. Security guard Eric Kabelo plans to return to Carletonville, a small town southwest of Johannesburg, for the season. Kabelo, who is 27, says he has no quibble with the restrictions. 

“I think it’s fine,” he said. “Because of alcohol, it gives us a problem. You can check -- a lot of people, they get into accidents, a lot of things are happening. I think the restriction is better.”

Office manager Thando Zondi is also hoping to travel this holiday season, to her home in KwaZulu-Natal province. No restrictions have been announced for that area, she said. 

“His speech yesterday was mostly for (Port Elizabeth), and I’m in Gauteng so I’m not really affected,” she said. “We’re still on level 1, so it didn’t change anything for us, so I’m not affected, I’m fine.” 

However, in his half-hour televised “family meeting,” President Ramaphosa reminded all South Africans that they have a role to play in keeping the resurgence contained.

“By far the greatest contributing cause of infections is that many people are not wearing masks and are not observing proper hygiene and social distancing,” the South African leader said. “As I said during our last family meeting, at alert level one, we have the measures we need to control the virus, all the tools in place, but our main problem is that there are parts of our country where people are not complying with the current restrictions and the basic prevention measures are not being followed.

“Fellow South Africans, we must change our behavior now to prevent a resurgence of the virus and manage outbreaks wherever they occur,” he added. “If we think of this pandemic like a bushfire, we need to quickly extinguish the flare-ups, the flames, before they turn into a big wildfire like an inferno.”

Kenya’s tourism sector lost close to $1 billion in revenue between January and October, when numbers of foreign visitors fell by two thirds due to COVID-19, the Tourism Ministry said on Wednesday.

From safaris in the Maasai Mara and other world-beating wildlife reserves to holidays on pristine Indian Ocean beaches, Kenya’s tourism industry contributes 10% of economic output and employs over 2 million people.

It brought in the equivalent of 163.5 billion shillings last year, and the government had initially expected that figure to grow 1% in 2020.

But international visitors fell to fewer than 500 000 in the first 10 months from 1.7 million in the same period last year, the Ministry said, knocking 110 billion Kenyan shillings ($995 million) off revenues that had been predicted to reach 147.5 billion shillings.

Minister for Tourism Najib Balala said that there had been a slight rise in visitor numbers following the lifting of travel restrictions in August.

The government was “optimistic the situation will gradually improve once the (COVID) vaccines being developed become readily available to the masses,” he said in a statement.

Kenya has had nearly 84 000 confirmed coronavirus cases,with 1 469 deaths, according to data from the World Health Organisation.

Between 2012 and 2015, visitor numbers to Kenya fell after a spate of attacks claimed by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, which wants Nairobi to pull troops out of neighbouring Somalia.

A fall in attacks in subsequent years helped the sector to rebound.