Africa
Vaccine deserts: Some countries have no COVID-19 jabs at all
At the small hospital where Dr. Oumaima Djarma works in Chad’s capital, there are no debates over which coronavirus vaccine is the best.
There are simply no vaccines at all.
Not even for the doctors and nurses like her, who care for COVID-19 patients in Chad, one of the least-developed nations in the world where about one third of the country is engulfed by the Sahara desert.
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“I find it unfair and unjust, and it is something that saddens me,” the 33-year-old infectious diseases doctor says. “I don’t even have that choice. The first vaccine that comes along that has authorization, I will take it.”
While wealthier nations have stockpiled vaccines for their citizens, many poorer countries are still scrambling to secure doses. A few, like Chad, have yet to receive any.
The World Health Organization says nearly a dozen countries — many of them in Africa — are still waiting to get vaccines. Those last in line on the continent along with Chad are Burkina Faso, Burundi, Eritrea and Tanzania.
“Delays and shortages of vaccine supplies are driving African countries to slip further behind the rest of the world in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the continent now accounts for only 1% of the vaccines administered worldwide,” WHO warned Thursday.
And in places where there are no vaccines, there’s also the chance that new and concerning variants could emerge, said Gian Gandhi, UNICEF’s COVAX coordinator for Supply Division.
“So we should all be concerned about any lack of coverage anywhere in the world,” Gandhi said, urging higher-income countries to donate doses to the nations that are still waiting.
While the total of confirmed COVID-19 cases among them is relatively low compared with the world’s hot spots, health officials say that figure is likely a vast undercount: The countries in Africa still waiting for vaccines are among those least equipped to track infections because of their fragile health care systems.
Chad has confirmed only 170 deaths since the pandemic began, but efforts to stop the virus entirely here have been elusive. Although the capital’s international airport was closed briefly last year, its first case came via someone who crossed one of Chad’s porous land borders illegally.
Regular flights from Paris and elsewhere have resumed, heightening the chance of increasing the 4,835 already confirmed cases.
The Farcha provincial hospital in N’Djamena is a gleaming new campus in an outlying neighborhood, where camels nibble from acacia trees nearby. Doctors Without Borders has helped supply oxygen for COVID-19 patients, and the hospital has 13 ventilators. The physicians also have plenty of Chinese-made KN95 masks and hand sanitizer. Still, not a single employee has been vaccinated and none has been told when that might be possible.
That was easier to accept at the beginning of the pandemic, Djarma said, because doctors all around the world lacked vaccines. That has changed dramatically after the development of shots in the West and by China and Russia that have gone to other poor African countries.
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“When I hear, for example, in some countries that they’ve finished with medical staff and the elderly and are now moving on to other categories, honestly, it saddens me,” Djarma said. “I ask them if they can provide us with these vaccines to at least protect the health workers.
“Everyone dies from this disease, rich or poor,” she says. “Everyone must have the opportunity, the chance to be vaccinated, especially those who are most exposed.”
COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to ship COVID-19 vaccines worldwide, is aimed at helping low- and middle-income countries get access. A few of the countries, though, including Chad, have expressed concerns about receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX for fear it might not protect as well against a variant first seen in South Africa.
Chad is expected to get some Pfizer doses next month if it can put in place the cold storage facilities needed to keep that vaccine safe in a country where temperatures soar each day to 43.5 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit).
Some of the last countries also took more time to meet the requirements for receiving doses, including signing indemnity waivers with manufacturers and having distribution plans in place.
Those delays, though, now mean an even longer wait for places like Burkina Faso, since a key vaccine manufacturer in India scaled back its global supply because of the catastrophic virus surge there.
“Now with global vaccine supply shortages, stemming in particular from the surge of cases in India and subsequently the Indian government’s sequestration of doses from manufacturers there, Burkina Faso risks even longer delays in receiving the doses it was slated to get,” said Donald Brooks, CEO of a U.S. aid group engaged in the COVID-19 response there known as Initiative: Eau.
Front-line health workers in Burkina Faso say they’re not sure why the government hasn’t secured vaccines.
“We would have liked to have had it like other colleagues around the world,” says Chivanot Afavi, a supervising nurse who worked on the front lines of the response until recently. “No one really knows what this disease will do to us in the future.”
In Haiti, not a single vaccine has been administered to the more than 11 million people who live in the most impoverished country of the Western hemisphere.
Haiti was slated to receive 756,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine via COVAX, but government officials said they didn’t have the infrastructure needed to conserve them and worried about having to throw them away. Haitian officials also expressed concerns over potential side effects and said they preferred a single-dose vaccine.
Also Read:India's disaster hangs over countries facing COVID-19 surges
Several small island nations in the Pacific also have yet to receive any vaccine, although the lack of outbreaks in some of those places has meant there is less urgency with inoculation campaigns. Vanuatu, with a population of 300,000, is waiting to receive its first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine later this month, but it has recorded only three cases of coronavirus, all of them in quarantine.
At the Farcha hospital in Chad, nine health care workers have gotten the virus, including Dr. Mahamat Yaya Kichine, a cardiologist. The hospital now has set up pods of health care worker teams to minimize the risk of exposure for the entire staff.
“It took almost 14 days for me to be cured,” Kichine says. “There were a lot of caregivers that were infected, so I think that if there is a possibility to make a vaccine available, it will really ease us in our work.”
Woman from Mali gives birth to 9 babies in Morocco
A Malian woman has given birth to nine babies at once — after expecting seven, according to Mali’s Minister of Health and the Moroccan clinic where the nonuplets were born.
It appeared to be the first time on record that a woman had given birth to nine surviving babies at once.
The five girls and four boys, and their mother, “are all doing well,” Mali’s health minister said in a statement.
The mother, 25-year-old Halima Cisse, gave birth to the babies by cesarean section on Tuesday in Morocco after being sent there for special care, Mali’s top health official announced.
Associated Press reporters saw some of the babies wiggling their hands and feet inside incubators Wednesday in the private Ain Borja clinic in Casablanca. Medical staff checked their status regularly in the neonatal ward wallpapered with cartoon characters.
Cisse had been expecting seven babies. Malian doctors, under government orders, sent her to Morocco for the births because hospitals in Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries, are ill-equipped to provide adequate care for this exceptional multiple pregnancy.
The Casablanca clinic’s director Youssef Alaoui told Moroccan state TV that they had been contacted by Malian doctors about the case a month and a half ago. They were not expecting nine babies, he said.
Cisse gave birth prematurely at 30 weeks and is now in stable condition after heavy bleeding for which she was given a blood transfusion, he said.
Also Read:Vaccinated mother gives birth to first baby with Covid-19 antibodies
The cesarean was ordered after Cisse had “birth pains,” Alaoui, the clinic director, said. The babies weigh between 500 grams and one kilogram (1.1 and 2.2 pounds).
The Guinness Book of World Records said in an email to The AP on Wednesday that its current record for most living births at once is eight, and that it is verifying the Morocco birth.
The current holder of the Guinness record is American Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to eight premature but otherwise healthy children in 2009.
Alaoui, the clinic director, told The AP that as far as he was aware Cisse had not used fertility treatments. The Malian health ministry did not provide any other information about the pregnancy or births.
Yacoub Khalaf, a professor of reproductive medicine at King’s College London, said that such births would be extraordinarily unlikely without fertility treatment, and noted the dangers involved with such multiple births.
The mother “was at severe risk of losing her uterus or losing her life,” he said. The babies “could suffer physical and mental handicaps. The risk of cerebral palsy is astronomically higher.”
He urged more awareness worldwide about monitoring fertility treatments and about the risks and costs of having so many premature babies at one time.
Africa CDC says India vaccine woes could be 'catastrophic'
Africa is unlikely to meet its targets for vaccinating the continent against COVID-19 if supply delays from a key Indian manufacturer continue, the director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Thursday.
Dr. John Nkengasong told a press briefing that officials hope the problems at the Serum Institute of India will only be temporary otherwise “it would definitely impact our ability to continuously vaccinate people.”
"I really want to deliberately hope that it is a delay — not a ban — because that would be catastrophic,” he said.
Also read: German cities suspend AstraZeneca vaccine use for under-60s
More than half of the 29.1 million vaccine doses received by African nations so far have come through the global COVAX initiative, which aims to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have fair access to vaccines. COVAX has largely relied on distributing the AstraZeneca vaccine, because it is cheaper and only requires ordinary refrigeration.
But the Serum Institute of India recently announced that as many as 90 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine destined for COVAX worldwide will be delayed through the end of April as India’s government grapples with a spike in infections among the country's 1.4 billion people.
Nkengasong said it is not yet known what impact the uncertainty might have for scheduling second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in African countries.
“We are tracking that very, very closely,” he said Thursday. “I’m sure countries are still trying to finish vaccinating their first round of the vaccines that were received.”
Also read: Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine batch fails quality check
Nkengasong remained optimistic, though, that a deal announced on Monday for African countries to acquire the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains “an historic moment and a game-changer.”
The agreement with the African Union's African Vaccine Acquisition Trust calls for 220 million doses to be delivered by the third quarter of this year, with an option to acquire an additional 180 million doses through 2022.
If those 400 million people receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it would represent more than half the continent's goal of 750 million, Nkengasong said.
Africa has confirmed more than 4.2 million cases and 112,000 deaths, but since most countries on the continent lack the means to track mortality data, it is not clear how many excess deaths have occurred since the pandemic began.
Also read: African expert warns of 'vaccine war' over access to jabs
Rebel attacks deepen humanitarian crisis in north Mozambique
After nearly a week of vicious fighting, Mozambique's rebels controlled about half of the strategic town of Palma on Tuesday, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the country's north and jeopardizing the multi-billion-dollar investment in offshore gas fields.
About 200 rebels armed with automatic rifles, machine guns, and mortars now control the part of Palma where government offices and banks are located, according to local media reports.
Thousands of residents already have fled to nearby Tanzania and south to the provincial capital of Pemba, according to international aid agencies.
More than 900,000 people in Mozambique now require food aid because of the crisis in the northern part of the country, according to the U.N. World Food Program.
"It is a fast-evolving conflict situation and large numbers of people are fleeing through the bush, with nothing, nothing by the clothes on their backs," Lola Castro, the regional director for WFP told The Associated Press. "This humanitarian crisis is not going away, it's increasing."
Palma's streets are deserted except for sporadic gunfire from the rebels, said Lionel Dyck, director of the Dyck Advisory Group, whose helicopter gunships are helping the Mozambican police battle the insurgents.
"It's actually quite dire on the ground. It's chaos because there's still no real control and there won't be control for some time," Dyck, a retired colonel in the Zimbabwean army, told the AP on Tuesday.
"We are fighting the people on the ground and we are at the same time looking for stragglers," he said. "As we are flying over areas, we look for people that are hiding in the bush ... We can use our squirrel helicopters and go out and pick up the civilians and move them to a friendly base."
The insurgents, who are allied to the Islamic State group, also attacked a site on the Indian Ocean coast near Macomia last week, showing their reach across Cabo Delgado province, according to local media reports.
The three-year insurgency of the rebels, who are primarily disaffected young Muslim men, has taken more than 2,600 lives and displaced an estimated 670,000 people, according to the U.N.
A video posted by the Islamic State group purports to show fighters in or near Palma, but cannot be independently verified by The Associated Press.
About 50 armed fighters in a mix of camouflage uniforms, black shirts, and red headscarves are gathered for what appears to be a roll call.
"Permission to kill where we are going," and "Permission to cut and kill where we are going," is shouted by some men, speaking a local dialect of Swahili and Arabic.
The rebels are known locally as al-Shabab (the youth in Arabic) but have no known affiliation with the jihadist rebels of the same name in Somalia. The United States last week declared Mozambique's rebels to be a terrorist organization and announced that 12 military trainers had been deployed to help the southern African country's marines.
Portugal, Mozambique's former colonial power, announced Tuesday that is stepping up its military cooperation by sending 60 soldiers to help train Mozambican special forces.
The European Union is also preparing "to increase security cooperation (with Mozambique), possibly via support with equipment or training," Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said in a statement.
The France-based oil and gas company has pulled out of its operations on the outskirts of Palma, a multi-billion-dollar investment to pump liquified natural gas from offshore oilfields in the Indian Ocean. Earlier this year the company had said it requires an area covering a 25-kilometer (15-mile) radius to be secure from rebel violence. Palma is within that area, making it uncertain when the oil giant will resume its investment.
With ship now freed, a probe into Suez Canal blockage begins
Experts boarded the massive container ship Tuesday that had blocked Egypt's vital Suez Canal and disrupted global trade for nearly a week, seeking answers to a single question that could have billions of dollars in legal repercussions: What went wrong?
As convoys of ships again began traveling through the artery linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas, a canal service provider said more than 300 vessels carrying everything from crude oil to cattle were still waiting for their turn in a process that will take days. Egyptian government officials, insurers, shippers and others similarly waited for more details about what caused the skyscraper-sized Ever Given to become wedged across the canal on March 23.
When blame gets assigned, it will likely lead to years of litigation to recoup the costs of repairing the ship, fixing the canal and reimbursing those who saw their cargo shipments disrupted. Since the vessel is owned by a Japanese firm, operated by a Taiwanese shipper, flagged in Panama and now stuck in Egypt, matters quickly become an international morass.
"This ship is a multinational conglomeration," said Capt. John Konrad, the founder and CEO of the shipping news website gcaptain.com.
Experts boarded the Ever Given as it idled Tuesday in Egypt's Great Bitter Lake, just north of the site where it previously blocked the canal. A senior canal pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, told The Associated Press that experts were looking for signs of damage and trying to determine why the vessel ran aground.
There could be significant damage to the the ship, Konrad warned. Stuck for days across the canal, the ship's middle rose and fell with the tide, bending up and down under the tremendous weight of some 20,000 containers across its 400-meter (quarter-mile) length. On Monday, when workers partially floated the ship, all that pressure came forward to its bow.
"Structural integrity is No. 1. You know, there was a lot of strain on that ship as it was sagging in the waterway," Konrad said. "They have to check everything for cracks and particularly that rudder and the propeller in the back that's connected to the engine room."
"And then they have to go through all the mechanical equipment, make sure they test the engines, all the safety valves, all the equipment, and then determine that it's safe to sail either by itself or with a tug escort to the next port," he added.
The ship's owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., said Tuesday that it would be part of the investigation along with other parties, though it did not identify them by name. It also refused to discuss possible causes of the grounding, including the ship's speed and the high winds that buffeted it during a sandstorm, saying it could not comment on an ongoing investigation. Initial reports also suggested a "blackout" struck the vessel, something denied by the ship's technical manager.
The company added that any damage to the ship was believed to be mostly on its keel. It said it was not immediately known whether the vessel will be repaired on site in Egypt or elsewhere, or whether it will eventually head to its initial destination of Rotterdam. That is a decision to be made by its operator, rather than the shipowner, the company said.
The grounding of the ship had halted billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce. Analysts expect it could take at least another 10 days to clear the backlog — though Egypt's president said Tuesday it would take just three. The losses to shippers, as well as any physical damage to the vessel itself, likely will see lawsuits.
Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. is covered with some $3 billion in liability insurance through 13 Protection & Indemnity Clubs. Those clubs are not-for-profit mutual insurers used by the vast majority of global shipping firms.
Global legal firm Clyde and Co. said the Ever Given's owner likely would pay Egypt's canal authority for the assistance already rendered to the vessel. The authority also could fine the Ever Given.
"We anticipate a detailed investigation will follow which will determine the cause," the firm said. "Evidently the cause will impact upon the legal liabilities of the ship and cargo interests."
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi traveled Tuesday to the canalside city of Ismailia to praise those who freed the vessel.
Speaking to a small group of reporters on a dock overlooking the waterway, el-Sissi deflected questions about the investigation, saying Egypt would not interfere in a probe that will be left to "the specialists."
"We want to confirm to all the world, that things are back to as they were," he added. He stood before a sign that said: "Welcome to the Suez Canal: Egypt's lifeline of peace, prosperity and development."
On Monday, a flotilla of tugboats helped by the tides, wrenched the bulbous bow of Ever Given from the canal's sandy bank, where it had been firmly lodged. The tugs blared their horns in jubilation as they guided the Ever Given through the water after days of futility that had captivated the world, drawing scrutiny and social media ridicule.
The Ever Given had crashed into a bank of a single-lane stretch of the canal about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez. That forced some ships to take the long, alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa's southern tip — a 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) detour that costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.
The unprecedented shutdown, which raised fears of extended delays, goods shortages and rising costs for consumers, added to strain on the shipping industry already under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.
Rebels leave beheaded bodies in streets of Mozambique town
Fierce fighting for control of Mozambique's strategic northern town of Palma left beheaded bodies strewn in the streets Monday, with heavily armed rebels battling army, police and a private military outfit in several locations.
Thousands were estimated to be missing from the town, which held about 70,000 people before the attack began last Wednesday.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Monday for the attack, saying it was carried out by the Islamic State Central Africa Province, according to the SITE extremist monitoring group.
The rebel claim said the insurgents now control Palma's banks, government offices, factories and army barracks, and that more than 55 people, including Mozambican army troops, Christians and foreigners were killed. It did not provide further detail on the dead.
Also read: Indonesia rebels say they took weapons from crashed chopper
Earlier this month the United States declared Mozambique's rebels to be a terrorist organization and announced it had sent military specialists to help train the Mozambican military to combat them.
Palma is the center of a multi-billion dollar investment by Total, the France-based oil and gas company, to extract liquified natural gas from offshore sites in the Indian Ocean. The gas deposits are estimated to be among the world's largest and the investment by Total and others is reported to be $20 billion, one of the largest in Africa.
The battle for Palma forced Total to evacuate its large, fortified site a few miles (kilometers) outside of the city.
The fighting spread across the town Monday, according to Lionel Dyck, director of the Dyck Advisory Group, a private military company contracted by the Mozambican police to help fight the rebels.
“There is fighting in the streets, in pockets across the town,” Dyck told The Associated Press. The Dyck group has several helicopter gunships in Palma which have been used to rescue trapped civilians and to fight the rebels.
“My guys are airborne and they've engaged several little groups and they've engaged one quite large group,” Dyck said. “They’ve landed into the fight to recover a couple of wounded policemen. ... We have also rescued many people who were trapped, 220 people at last count.”
He said those rescued were taken to Total's fortified site on the southern African country's Afungi peninsula, where chartered flights flew many south to Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado province.
The rebels are well-armed with AK-47 automatic rifles, RPD and PKM machine guns and heavy mortars, Dyck said.
“This attack is not a surprise. We've been expecting Palma to be whacked the moment the rains stopped and the fighting season started, which is now,” he said.
“They have been preparing for this. They've had enough time to get their ducks in a row. They have a notch up in their ability. They're more aggressive. They're using their mortars.” He said many were wearing black uniforms.
“There have been lots of beheadings. Right up on day one, our guys saw the drivers of trucks bringing rations to Palma. Their bodies were by the trucks. Their heads were off.”
Dyck said it will not be easy for the Mozambican government to regain control of Palma.
“They must get sufficient troops to sweep through the town, going house-to-house and clean each one out. That's the most difficult phase of warfare in the book,” Dyck said. “It will be very difficult unless there's a competent force put in place with good command and control to retake that town. It can be done. But it ain't going to be easy.”
Also read: Rebel attack on Congolese city leaves 6 dead
Without control of Palma, Total's operations are jeopardized, analysts say.
The battle for Palma is similar to how the rebels seized the port Mocimboa da Praia in August. The rebels infiltrated men into the town to live among residents and then launched a three-pronged attack. Fighting continued for more than a week until the rebels controlled the town center and then its port. The town, about 50 miles south of Palma, is still held by the rebels.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric condemned the violence in Palma, which he said has reportedly killed dozens of people, “including some trying to flee a hotel where they had taken shelter.”
He referred to those trapped at the Amarula Hotel who tried to escape in a convoy of 17 vehicles on Friday. Only seven vehicles made it to the beach, where seven people were killed. Some in the other vehicles fled into the dense tropical jungle and were later rescued.
“We continue to coordinate closely with the authorities on the ground to provide assistance to those affected by the violence,” Dujarric said.
The battle for Palma is expected to drastically worsen the humanitarian crisis in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province, where the rebels started violent attacks in 2017. The insurgents began as a few bands of disaffected and unemployed young Muslim men. They now likely number in the thousands, according to experts.
“The attack on Palma is a game-changer in that the rebels have changed the narrative,” said one expert who returned from Palma earlier this month.
“This is no rag-tag bunch of disorganized youths. This is a trained and determined force that has captured and held one town and is now sustaining a battle for a very strategic center," said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of visiting Palma. "They have called into question the entire LNG (liquified natural gas) investment which was supposed to bring Mozambique major economic growth over many years.”
Also read: Rebel attacks in eastern Congo kill several Ebola responders
Known locally as al-Shabab, although they have no known affiliation with Somalia's jihadist rebels of the same name, the rebels' violence in Mozambique, a nation of 30 million, is blamed for the deaths of more than 2,600 people and caused an estimated 670,000 people to flee their homes.
“The attack on Palma has made a bad humanitarian situation worse," said Jonathan Whittall, director of analysis for Doctors Without Borders, which is working to help the displaced around Pemba, the provincial capital 100 miles south of Palma.
“Across Cabo Delgado, the situation was already extremely worrying for those displaced by violence and for those who are in areas that are difficult for humanitarian assistance to reach,” Whittall said. “This attack on Palma has led to more displacement and will increase the needs that have to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
“For too long northern Mozambique has been a neglected humanitarian crisis,” Whittall said, adding that his organization is exploring ways to expand its emergency response.
Stuck ship thrusts sleepy Suez Canal village into limelight
The sleepy farming village of Amer overlooks the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most important waterways. Last week, the village was suddenly thrust into the limelight after a massive container ship, the Ever Given, got stuck nearby.
The contrast between tranquil village life and the busy artery of global shipping is stark.
Farmers in Amer eke out a living tending to small fields and livestock, while before them pass behemoths of world trade — vessels carrying millions of dollars’ worth of cargo.
But the canal is also a source of intense pride for residents of the area, including the nearby town of Suez. They call it “our canal” and the older ones still remember then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s decision in 1956 to nationalize the canal despite fierce pressure from Western powers.
“I was five or six years old, celebrations were everywhere,” said Abdel-Wahab, 71, who works as a waiter in Suez. “It was like you freed your son who was taken against your will.”
The village, along with other areas along the western bank of the canal, was abandoned during the 1967 Mideast war and its residents were only allowed to return in the 1970s.
Also read: Canal service provider says container ship in Suez set free
They are now rooting for canal authorities as they battle to dislodge the vessel.
It was a windy morning when the Ever Given — one of the world’s largest container ships — got wedged sideways in a single-lane stretch of the canal last Tuesday.
Amer resident Fatima was feeding poultry on the roof of her three-story home when she saw the massive ship sitting motionless in the canal. At first, she didn’t think it was unusual.
“Sometimes, one vessel stops for a reason or another,” the elderly woman said Sunday,
Dressed in a dark blue jalabiya, or traditional loose-fitting garment, she was sitting at the gate of her house with a neighbor. The women were chatting and drinking tea.
Like other villagers, they did not want to give their full names for fear of getting in trouble with the authorities who have restricted media access to the area.
Also read: Before the Ever Given: A look at the crises that closed Suez
Almost a week after the accident, tug boats and dredgers, taking advantage of high tides, partially floated the Ever Given on Monday, but it remains unclear how long it would take to set it free.
The pointed bow of the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned vessel remains stuck on sandy clay along the canal bank. Experts said that despite the partial success, the worst option — having to remove containers from the vessel to lighten the load — is not yet off the table.
The giant ship carries some 20,000 containers. Taking them off would likely add even more days to the canal’s closure, further disrupting a global shipping network. A prolonged closure would cause delays in the global shipment chain. The canal handles some 10% of the world trade flow. Last year, some 19,000 vessels passed through it, according to official figures.
The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East. Already, Syria has begun rationing the distribution of fuel in the war-torn country because of delayed shipments.
Over the past week, the salvage efforts have been the main topic of conversation in Amer, home to several thousand people who grow clover and cabbage and tend to water buffaloes, cows, goats and sheep.
“We have not seen anything like that before,” Abdel-Wahab, the waiter, said of the Ever Given’s misfortune.
Also read: What we know about a ship blocking the Suez Canal
Journalists have been visiting the village, in part to get a better view of the vessel.
“For sure, you’re coming for the ship,” whispered a farmer to a reporter. His donkey cart was sitting in the middle of a narrow road just a few dozen meters (yards) from the vessel.
“It’s there, standing like the mountain,” said another man when asked how to get closer to the ship.
Villager Mohammed Said, 72, who works in Suez as a garbage collector, said the grounding of the Ever Given is unique in the canal’s history, and that he hopes the vessel can be dislodged quickly.
“It’s a tragedy impacting not only Egypt, but the whole world,” he said.
Before the Ever Given: A look at the crises that closed Suez
Since it opened in 1869, Egypt’s Suez Canal has been a source of national pride and a focus of international conflict. It is one of the world’s great maritime shortcuts, connecting the Red and Mediterranean Seas through a narrow passage that chops thousands of miles off most east-west shipping voyages.
Now, a different sort of crisis has thrust the Suez Canal into the global spotlight. A skyscraper-sized container ship called the Ever Given got stuck sideways across the waterway last week. The obstruction has halted canal traffic — valued at over $9 billion a day — disrupting a global shipping network already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of ships waiting to cross the canal have piled up in a colossal traffic jam. With the vessel’s bow still firmly lodged in the eastern bank, other shippers are opting to take the long route around the Cape of Good Hope.
Also read: No timeline given for extracting wedged ship from Suez Canal
Nearly 19,000 vessels passed through the Suez Canal last year, carrying over 10% of global trade, including 7% of the world’s oil. While its shutdown this week is historic, the canal is no stranger to disruption. Here’s a look at some major incidents that have closed or threatened the bottleneck in the past.
THE “SUEZ CRISIS”
In 1956, Egypt’s then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal. The seizure, celebrated by Egyptians as a defiant break from European imperialism, prompted Britain, France and Israel to intervene militarily and occupy the canal zone.
Canal service provider says container ship in Suez set free
Salvage teams on Monday set free a colossal container ship that has halted global trade through the Suez Canal, a canal services firm said, bringing an end to a crisis that for nearly a week clogged one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries.
Helped by the peak of high tide, a flotilla of tugboats managed to wrench the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized Ever Given from the canal’s sandy bank, where it had been firmly lodged since last Tuesday.
After hauling the fully laden 220,000-ton vessel over the canal bank, the salvage team was pulling the vessel toward the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal, where the ship will undergo technical inspection, canal authorities said.
Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com confirmed that the ship was moving away from the shoreline toward the center of the artery.
Video released by the Suez Canal Authority showed the Ever Given being escorted by the tugboats that helped free it, each sounding off their horns in jubilation after nearly a week of chaos.
Also read: What we know about a ship blocking the Suez Canal
The obstruction has created a massive traffic jam in the vital passage, holding up $9 billion each day in global trade and straining supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.
It remained unclear when traffic through the canal would return to normal. At least 367 vessels, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle, have piled up on either end of the canal, waiting to pass.
Data firm Refinitiv estimated it could take more than 10 days to clear the backlog of ships. Meanwhile, dozens of vessels have opted for the alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip — a 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) detour that adds some two weeks to journeys and costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.
The freeing of the vessel came after dredgers vacuumed up sand and mud from the vessel’s bow and 10 tugboats pushed and pulled the vessel for five days, managing to partially refloat it at dawn.
It wasn’t clear whether the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship hauling goods from Asia to Europe, would continue to its original destination of Rotterdam or if it would need to enter another port for repairs.
Also read: Ship ‘partially refloated,’ but still stuck in Suez Canal
Ship operators did not offer a timeline for the reopening of the crucial canal, which carries over 10% of global trade, including 7% of the world’s oil. Over 19,000 ships passed through last year, according to canal authorities.
Millions of barrels of oil and liquified natural gas flow through the artery from the Persian Gulf to Europe and North America. Goods made in China — furniture, clothes, supermarket basics — bound for Europe also must go through the canal, or else take the detour around Africa.
The unprecedented shutdown had threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East and raised fears of extended delays, goods shortages and rising costs for consumers.
The salvage operation successfully relied on tugs and dredgers alone, allowing authorities to avoid the far more complex and lengthy task of lightening the vessel by offloading its 20,000 containers.
African expert warns of 'vaccine war' over access to jabs
The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned against a “vaccine war” among nations amid renewed fears vaccine shipments to the continent face delays.
John Nkengasong said in a briefing Thursday that he “truly feels helpless that this situation is going to significantly impact our ability to fight this virus," referring to reports that the Serum Institute of India is suspending major exports of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in order to meet rising demand at home.
“Without ramping (up) access to vaccines we will be challenged, continue to be challenged. Lives will be lost,” Dr. Nkengasong said, noting that he remains hopeful "the power of humanity will prevail.”
Also read: Virus variants, vaccine inequity responsible for rising Covid caseload: WHO
He added: “There is absolutely no need, absolutely no need for us as humanity to go into a vaccine war to fight this pandemic. We will all be losers.”
The Serum Institute of India produces the AstraZeneca shots being shipped to Africa through the international COVAX initiative to ensure vaccine access for low- and middle-income countries. At least 28 of Africa's 54 countries have received over 16 million doses via COVAX as of Thursday.
Vaccine shipments through COVAX continue to arrive across Africa. South Sudan, for example, on Thursday received its first batch of 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in what WHO called “a giant step” toward equitable destruction of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide.
But COVAX has been facing delays related to the limited global supply of vaccine doses as well as logistical issues. That’s why some countries such as South Africa, the hardest-hit African nation, are also pursuing COVID-19 vaccines via bilateral deals and through the African Union’s bulk-purchasing program.
Also read: Leaders of "Quad" agree to aid vaccine delivery to developing nation
At least 10 African countries are yet to receive vaccines, according to the World Health Organization's regional office for Africa. Those countries include Tanzania, Burundi, Eritrea, Cameroon, and Chad.
The continent has "has received limited doses and much later than the rest of the world,” Dr. Richard Mihigo, a program coordinator in charge of immunization and vaccine development with WHO's Africa office, said in a briefing Thursday.
“We are concerned that while COVAX vaccinations have enabled many African countries to roll out vaccinations, the slow pace of vaccine supply we are now seeing risks widening the gap between the world's vaccinated and the unvaccinated populations,” he said, charging that it's unfair that some wealthy nations “are looking to vaccinate their entire populations” while Africa continues to lag behind.
There are ongoing discussions between WHO, the global vaccine alliance GAVI and Indian authorities aimed at ensuring COVAX shipments continue to be prioritized, the official said.
Africa hopes to vaccinate 60% of its 1.3 billion people by mid-2022 in order to achieve herd immunity, when enough people are protected through infection or vaccination to make it difficult for a virus to continue to spread. That amounts to about 1.5 billion vaccine doses.
That target almost certainly will not be met without widespread use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which many experts see as key to the global strategy to stamp out the coronavirus pandemic. The vaccine from the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker is cheaper and easier to store than many others. It will make up nearly all of the doses shipped in the first half of the year via COVAX.
Experts have warned that until vaccination rates are high the world over, the virus remains a threat everywhere.
“We are all in this together. This is a global pandemic, and we need to solve it through global vaccination, global public health methods," said Anthony Costello, a professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London.
Also read: AstraZeneca confirms strong vaccine protection after US rift
Costello told the WHO briefing that while Africa, with its much younger population, is seeing lower death rates than other regions, "we must put pressure on wealthy countries to ensure that they offer the finance and the assistance to Africa to get the required number of vaccines.”
Africa has confirmed more than 4 million cases of COVID-19, including 110,000 deaths, according to the Africa CDC.