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Month: January 2024
Behind European Farmers Protests: Anger, Hardship and No Easy Answers
PARIS — French cereal grower Jerome Regnault has spent years explaining his profession, as co-founder of a nonprofit to educate consumers about agriculture, and as a local lawmaker for the Ile-de-France region surrounding Paris.
But last week, he chose to communicate another way — firing up his tractor to join a spreading farmers’ protest in France and across the European Union.
“It’s been several years since government announcements haven’t been followed,” Regnault said, as he drove to a roadblock set up by farmers Monday in the Yvelines department west of the French capital. “In farming, we like to weigh, measure, count. So, it’s over with announcements.”
Simmering discontent among European growers has exploded into protests and blockages of ports and roads in recent months, hopscotching from Germany and Poland to touch the Netherlands, Romania, Greece, Spain and Belgium — and now agricultural heavyweight France.
The grievances are varied, but many touch on complicated bureaucracy, soaring costs of inputs like fertilizer and fuel, competition from overseas and European environmental regulations that many say threaten their business.
Speaking to parliament on Tuesday, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal vowed to resolve the standoff, and promised fresh financial support to farmers. From Sweden, French President Emmanuel Macron added more concessions, calling for ending select food imports from Ukraine and an end to talks on a trade deal with countries in a Latin American trade bloc known as Mercosur.
Yet there is no sign of the protest movement fading. Farmers in Brittany dumped 700 tons of soil on a highway Tuesday, in a bid, they said, to “sow a prairie.” Around the southern city of Toulouse, others tried to block access to a local airport. Meanwhile, Paris-area protesters promised to slowly tighten a blockade on eight main arteries around the capital, with some aiming to block the wholesale market Rungis that supplies the city’s food.
The discontent clashes with national values that have long embraced farming and rural life. Every year, French presidents and political candidates make an obligatory stop at the Paris agricultural fair to pat cows, chat with growers and snack on sausages.
Yet many of France’s small- and medium-sized farmers are becoming poorer by the year. Over half a century, the number of farms has plummeted, from 1.5 million to about 456,000 today. Roughly one-quarter of growers lives under the poverty line, and suicide rates are high, according to French statistical agency INSEE.
Heading toward a wall
Regnault, whose farm is located on the outskirts of Paris and who took over the business from his father, pointed to a raft of red tape and expenses, and faulted both French and EU bureaucracy.
Among other demands, he wants more subsidies to farmers and an end to diesel taxes along with international trade agreements that he said penalize French agriculture. Regnault said he uses pesticides judiciously and tries to follow green farming practices as long as they don’t undermine his business.
“The Green Deal and the Farm to Fork seem wonderful, but they harm agricultural productivity,” said Regnault, referring to two major EU measures aimed at promoting healthy and environmentally friendly food production and slashing carbon emissions.
Polls show a large majority of French support the protest movement. And a recent CSA survey found more respondents believe French farmers do a better job of protecting nature than environmentalists.
Nadine Lauverjat, coordinator for French environmental group Generations Futures, sided with the farmers on ending major international trade deals like with Mercosur, but rejected efforts to soften environmental regulations that she argued ultimately helped farmers as well.
“We’re heading towards a wall,” she said of the standoff, “and so are the farmers.”
Marco Contiero, who heads agricultural policy for environmental group Greenpeace in Brussels, outlined a range of changes that he said are needed, and would benefit both the bloc’s farmers and environment. Among them: ensuring EU farm subsidies target small- and medium-sized growers rather than large ones, incorporating costs like pollution in the price of food, and cutting profits earned by fertilizer companies, retailers and others.
Rather than being too stringent, Contiero said, many of the EU’s Green Deal environmental regulations have not been enforced or are not binding.
“The science is unequivocal — we have to do things differently,” Contiero said of the growing environmental problems facing Europe, from degraded land to polluted water and climate change. “The problem for farmers is that we cannot ask them to do things better if the current subsidy system keeps benefitting the biggest ones.”
Here and elsewhere, right-wing parties have capitalized on the farmers’ anger and the mounting anti-EU and anti-globalization sentiments.
“What we’re paying today is the punitive ecology by the crazy environmentalists from Brussels,” Laurent Jacobelli, spokesman for France’s far-right National Rally party, told France-Info radio Tuesday.
“There is a large chunk of French farmers who don’t believe in the government anymore,” said farmer Regnault.
Nor, he added, do they believe in the mainstream right and left parties.
“They’ll be tempted to vote for the far right,” he said, “Which would be unfortunate.”
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Ukraine War, Economic Uncertainty Cause Russia’s Birth Rate to Plunge
Russia is facing the biggest demographic crisis in its recent history, a drastic drop in births that reflects the fear that many Russians have about starting a family in an uncertain economic and political landscape. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from the VOA Moscow Bureau.
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US Delivers 66 Schools for Students in Rural Malawi
Blantyre, Malawi — The U.S. government handed over 66 secondary schools that it built for students in rural Malawi under the USAID-funded Secondary School Expansion for Development project, or SEED.
The project is a partnership of the U.S. government through the United States Agency for International Development and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Amy Diaz, deputy ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Malawi, said the $90 million project started in 2019 with an initial plan to build 200 schools across Malawi. That number was reduced to 89 because of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created many challenges, including a rise in the cost of building materials.
“When the costs increased, we worked with the ministry of education to narrow down the new school construction sites to the areas of greatest need in each district. With a handover of 66 schools today, we are on track to complete construction of 89 new rural schools by the end of this year,” Diaz said.
About 27,000 students will now have access to secondary school education. The new schools have reduced the distance many learners have to walk to get to classes, with some living 10 kilometers away.
President Lazarus Chakwera presided over the televised handoff ceremony Monday in the Salima district of central Malawi. He called the event a milestone in Malawi’s partnership with the U.S.
“A partnership that produces 66 brand new secondary schools, serving communities across 20 districts, is no ordinary partnership. A partnership that expands access to secondary education for tens of thousands of our youths is no ordinary partnership,” Chakwera said.
Education analysts say it is Malawi’s government that needs to improve the quality of education and stop vandalism of public schools. Several government secondary schools were closed recently due to vandalism by angry students.
“We have a scenario here where the government is unable to renovate the vandalized infrastructure, thereby keeping the students out of learning,” said Benedicto Kondowe, an education expert and executive director for the Civil Society Education Coalition in Malawi. “Therefore, the extent of school vandalism that we have had presented a very dangerous course in this country. Once we do not take care of the infrastructure that we have, chances are high most people will be kept out of the education system.”
Kondowe said he also hopes construction of the new schools will help reduce unemployment among teachers, who have long held protests pushing the government to hire them.
Chakwera said his administration will recruit 5,000 secondary school teachers following the construction of the U.S.-funded schools.
“This is why my administration has invested heavily by expanding the teacher base by increasing the teaching staff by 50%, adding 13,000 teachers to the staff roll,” he said. “Apart from increasing the quantity, we also want to increase the quality of teaching. And that includes improving the condition of service for teachers and school administrators.”
Willie Malimba, president of the Teachers Union of Malawi, said 5,000 teachers are just the tip of the iceberg in a country with a massive shortage of professional educators, and that existing schools may remain understaffed.
“If those 5,000 teachers are adding up to already existing secondary schools, we could say at least it’s a little bit better,” Malimba said. “But now, we are going to have 66 additional secondary schools. This means these 5,000 will be directly absorbed by the 66 additional secondary schools. Which means shortfalls that are already there in some secondary schools, they are still there.”
The education ministry has announced plans to add more structures to the newly constructed secondary schools, including a laboratory block, a library, eight teachers’ houses and an administration section.
It says this is in line with the newly introduced minimum package required for the country’s secondary school infrastructure.
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Election Rally Bombing, Insurgent Raid Kill Several in Southwestern Pakistan
Islamabad — A bomb explosion at an election rally in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province Tuesday killed at least four people and injured several others.
Police and health officials confirmed the casualties, saying the attack in the town of Sibi targeted a motorcycle campaign rally led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party, headed by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Hospital sources said many of the injured were in “critical condition,” and that the death toll was likely to rise. No group or individual immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.
PTI confirmed that its supporters were the targets of the attack. It said that a party candidate for the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, had organized the gathering ahead of Pakistan’s February 8 national elections.
The deadly blast followed overnight heavy clashes between security forces and separatist insurgents elsewhere in Baluchistan.
Provincial officials reported that a shootout erupted Monday night after heavily armed men stormed the city of Mach, launching dozens of rockets at several locations, including the central jail and the headquarters of the paramilitary Frontier Corps force.
In a statement late Tuesday, the Pakistan military reported that security forces had effectively responded to the “terrorist” raid and foiled it in the process. It added that the ensuing clashes left nine assailants, including suicide bombers, dead, while four security personnel and two civilians were also killed.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, claimed responsibility for staging the attack, stating it had inflicted heavy casualties on Pakistani security forces. The group, however, is known for inflating the number of casualties from their attacks.
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Ukraine, Middle East Conflicts Hamper Fight Against Graft
Analysts: Modi Poll Victory Looks Certain With Leveraging of Hindu Nationalism
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the opening of a new Hindu temple earlier in January, analysts called it the unofficial start of his reelection campaign. With India due to go to the polls as soon as April, surveys say Modi is the most popular elected leader in the world, while commentators agree his reelection is all but certain. Henry Wilkins reports from Ayodhya on how Modi has taken advantage of Hindu nationalism to gain such support.
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Ahead of Pakistan Poll, Baloch Youth Deeply Disappointed in Parties
Pakistan is slated to hold a general election on February 8. Young people will play an important role as around 44% of Pakistani voters are between the ages of 18 and 35. But, as VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports from Quetta, the capital of the country’s southwestern province of Balochistan, young voters are deeply disillusioned with most political parties. Camera: Zafarullah Baloch. Video editor: Malik Waqar Ahmed.
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France’s Macron Gets Ceremonial Welcome as He Starts 2-Day State Visit to Sweden
Stockholm — French President Emmanuel Macron was welcomed Tuesday with pomp and ceremony at the start of a two-day state visit to Sweden during which he will meet Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and the Scandinavian country’s monarch, King Carl XVI Gustaf.
Macron and his wife, Brigitte, were greeted by the king in the inner courtyard of the downtown Stockholm royal castle that is the official residence of the Swedish royals. There, Macron and Carl Gustaf reviewed members of the Grenadier Guards that had lined up.
Macron noted that it had been too long since a French president visited Sweden — the last time was in 2000, when Jacques Chirac traveled to the Scandinavian country.
“My visit is therefore first and foremost to renew our friendship, our partnership in the European Union, and as Sweden prepares to join NATO, our alliance,” Macron said.
Later Tuesday, Macron is to discuss the future of European security at a military academy in Stockholm, together with Kristersson and the king. Russia’s war on Ukraine and Sweden’s NATO application are likely to be on the table.
After more than a year of delays, Turkey earlier this month completed its ratification of Sweden’s bid to join NATO, meaning Hungary is now the last member of the military alliance not to have given its approval. All NATO countries must agree before a new member can join the alliance.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sweden and neighboring Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella. Finland joined the alliance last year.
On Wednesday, Macron and his wife are to travel to Malmo, the third-largest city, in southern Sweden, where they will visit a European multidisciplinary research facility under construction and visit a company to discuss green technologies.
At home, Macron’s government faces angry farmers who have camped out around Paris. They demand better pay, fewer constraints and lower costs. On Monday, they encircled Paris with traffic-snarling barricades, using hundreds of tractors and hay bales to block highways leading to the capital.
The French president initially was to travel to Sweden in late October, but the visit was postponed due to the Gaza war that began with Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
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Millions Urgently Need Food in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region Despite Resumption of Aid Deliveries
KAMPALA, Uganda — Only a small fraction of millions of needy people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are receiving food aid, according to an aid memo seen by The Associated Press, more than one month after aid agencies resumed deliveries of grain following a lengthy pause over massive theft.
Just 14% of 3.2 million people targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in the region this month had received it by Jan. 21, according to the memo by the Tigray Food Cluster, a group of aid agencies co-chaired by the U.N.’s World Food Program and Ethiopian officials.
The memo urges humanitarian groups to “immediately scale up” their operations, warning that “failure to take swift action now will result in severe food insecurity and malnutrition during the lean season, with possible loss of the most vulnerable children and women in the region.”
The U.N. and the U.S. paused food aid to Tigray in March last year after discovering a “large-scale” scheme to steal humanitarian grain. The suspension was rolled out to the rest of Ethiopia in June.
U.S. officials believe the theft may be the biggest diversion of grain ever. Humanitarian donors have blamed Ethiopian government officials and the country’s military for the fraud. Ethiopia’s government dismissed that suggestion as harmful “propaganda.”
The U.N. and the U.S. lifted the pause in December after introducing reforms to curb theft, but Tigray authorities say food is not reaching those who need it.
Two aid workers told the AP that the new system — which includes fitting GPS trackers to food trucks and ration cards with QR codes — has been hampered by technical issues, causing delays. Aid agencies are also struggling with a lack of funds.
A third aid worker said the food aid pause and the slow resumption meant some people in Tigray have not received food aid for over a year. “They went through multiple rounds of registration and verification, but no actual distributions yet,” the aid worker said.
The aid workers spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
Tigray, home to 5.5 million people, was the center of a devastating two-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and spilled into the neighboring regions. A U.N. panel accused Ethiopia’s government of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting food aid to Tigray during the conflict, which ended in November 2022 with a peace deal.
Around 20.1 million people across Ethiopia need humanitarian food due to drought, conflict and a tanking economy. The aid pause pushed up hunger levels even further.
The U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System has warned that crisis levels of hunger or worse “are expected in northern, southern and southeastern Ethiopia throughout at least early 2024.” A former head of the WFP has described these levels of hunger as “marching towards starvation.”
In the Amhara region neighboring Tigray, a rebellion that erupted in August is impeding humanitarians’ movements and making distributions difficult, while several regions of Ethiopia have been devastated by a multi-year drought.
Malnutrition rates among children in parts of Ethiopia’s Afar, Amhara and Oromia regions range between 15.9% and 47%, according to a presentation by the Ethiopia Nutrition Cluster and reviewed by the AP. Among displaced children in Tigray, the rate is 26.5%. The Ethiopia Nutrition Cluster is co-chaired by the U.N. Children’s Fund and the federal government.
Persistent insecurity in Tigray meant only 49% of its farmland was planted during the main planting season last year, according to an assessment by U.N. agencies, NGOs and the regional authorities, and seen by the AP.
Crop production in these areas was only 37% of the expected total because of drought. In some areas the proportion was as low as 2%.
The poor harvest prompted Tigray’s authorities to warn of an “unfolding famine” that could match the disaster of 1984-5, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across northern Ethiopia, unless the aid response is immediately scaled up.
However, Ethiopia’s federal government denies there is a large hunger crisis. When Tigray’s leader, Getachew Reda, raised the alarm over looming mass starvation deaths last month, a federal government spokesperson dismissed the reports as “inaccurate” and accused him of “politicizing the crisis.”
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EU Slowly Moves Toward Using Profits From Frozen Russian Assets to Help Ukraine
Brussels — European Union nations have decided to approve an outline deal that would keep in reserve the profits from hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian central bank assets that have been frozen in retaliation for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, an EU official said.
The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, still needs formal approval but is seen as a first step toward using some of the 200 billion euros ($216 billion) in Russian central bank assets in the EU to help Ukraine rebuild from Russian destruction.
The official, who asked not to be identified since the agreement was not yet legally ratified, said the bloc “would allow to start collecting the extraordinary revenues generated from the frozen assets … to support the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
How the proceeds will be used will be decided later, as the issue remains mired in legal and practical considerations.
There is urgency since Ukraine is struggling to make ends meet, and aid plans in the EU and the United States are being held back over political considerations including whether allies will continue helping Ukraine at the same pace as they did in the first two years of the war.
EU leaders will meet on Thursday hoping to approve a 50 billion euro ($54 billion) support package for Ukraine over the solitary opposition of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Even if using the unfrozen assets, which now go untapped, seems like a practical step to take, many fear that financial weaponization could harm the standing of the EU in global financial markets.
Early this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for a “strong” decision this year for the frozen assets in Western banks to “be directed towards defense against the Russian war and for reconstruction” of Ukraine.
The EU step late Monday paves the way if EU nations ever want to impose such measures. Group of Seven allies of Ukraine are still looking for an adequate legal framework to pursue the plan.
The U.S. announced at the start of Russia’s invasion that America and its allies had blocked access to more than $600 billion that Russia held outside its borders — including roughly $300 billion in funds belonging to Russia’s central bank. Since then, the U.S and its allies have continued to impose rounds of targeted sanctions against companies and wealthy elites with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The World Bank’s latest damage assessment of Ukraine, released in March 2023, estimates that costs for the nation’s reconstruction and recovery will be $411 billion over the next 10 years, which includes needs for public and private funds.
Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union for the next six months, is now leading the talks on whether to seize Russia’s assets. Belgium is also the country where most frozen Russian assets under sanctions are being held.
The country is collecting taxes on the assets. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in October that 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in tax collections were already available and that the money would be used to pay for military equipment, humanitarian aid and helping rebuild the war-torn country.
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Northern Ireland’s DUP Strikes Deal for Power-Sharing Government
BALLYNAHINCH, Northern Ireland — The leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said it had reached a deal with the British government on the operation of post-Brexit trade rules that would allow it to return to the region’s power-sharing government.
Northern Ireland has been without a devolved government for almost two years after the DUP walked out in protest over the trade rules, which it said created barriers with the rest of the United Kingdom and undermined Northern Ireland’s place in it.
A return to government by the region’s largest pro-British party offers a way out of a crisis that posed an existential threat to the political settlement underpinning Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal, and also puts an end to one of the most difficult aspects of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.
“I am pleased to report that the party executive has now endorsed the proposals that I have put to them,” Jeffrey Donaldson told a news conference in the early hours of Tuesday morning after an hours-long briefing to DUP lawmakers and party members.
“Subject to the binding commitments between the Democratic Unionist Party and the UK government being fully and faithfully delivered as agreed… the package of measures in totality does provide a basis for our party to nominate members to the Northern Ireland executive,” he added.
Any deal risked a split in the DUP while also providing ammunition to rivals including the much smaller Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, who oppose any compromise, ahead of a UK general election due by late January next year.
Earlier around 50 protesters, some holding Union Jack flags and signs saying “Stop DUP sellout,” gathered outside the hotel where Donaldson briefed party members after months of closely guarded talks.
The DUP leader said the party made a decisive decision and that the result of a vote was “very clear.”
Sinn Fein Leader
Donaldson said the measures, which will be underpinned by new UK laws, will remove checks for goods moving within the UK and remaining in Northern Ireland, guarantee unfettered access for Northern Ireland businesses to the UK market and safeguard the region’s place in the UK.
He said London would publish details “in due course” and could move quickly to enable the DUP to take its place back in Belfast’s Stormont Assembly.
Irish nationalists and pro-British unionist politicians are obliged to share power under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord that ended three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
Britain’s Northern Ireland Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, said on social media platform X that the parties entitled to form an executive would meet later Tuesday and that he hoped the assembly would return “as soon as possible.”
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, whose Irish nationalist party became the largest in the British-run region for the first time at elections shortly after the DUP walkout, said she was optimistic that the assembly would be restored by Feb. 8.
That will allow Sinn Fein to assume the role of Northern Ireland first minister, the latest political milestone for the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who want to leave the United Kingdom and form a united Ireland.
your ad herePakistan’s Ex-PM Khan Sentenced To 10 Years Over US-Related State Secrets
ISLAMABAD — A special court in Pakistan sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 10 years in prison Tuesday on charges that while in office, he made public state secrets involving the United States.
Khan’s former foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, was also given a 10-year jail term in the lawsuit stemming from a classified cable, internally known as a cipher.
Khan claimed the diplomatic cable had documented the U.S. role in the toppling of his government with the help of the military to punish him for pushing Pakistan to have a foreign policy free of American influence. Washington and the Pakistan military denied the accusations.
The 71-year-old former Pakistani prime minister, who was ousted from power in April 2022 by an opposition alliance, has rejected the cipher trial as politically motivated and manufactured by the country’s powerful military.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party decried the court ruling as “a complete mockery and disregard of the law” in a trial “with no access to media or public.” The party said its legal team “will challenge the decision in a higher court” and “hopefully will get this sentence suspended.”
The single-judge tribunal conducted the trial inside a high-security prison near Islamabad, with no access to foreign and most mainstream Pakistani media representatives.
Tuesday’s conviction under the Official Secrets Act comes ahead of parliamentary elections in Pakistan, which are scheduled for Feb. 8.
The cipher was sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in March 2022, a month before a parliamentary vote of no-confidence removed Khan from power.
The ousted Pakistani leader has maintained that the U.S. in the cipher had encouraged the military to orchestrate the vote, and he was obligated to share the cipher’s contents with his voters to expose the foreign “conspiracy” against his government.
Khan has been in jail since August after being convicted on controversial corruption charges and sentenced to three years. He was subsequently disqualified from contesting an election for five years in line with the election laws that bar convicts from standing.
The cricket hero-turned-politician denies any wrongdoing, accusing the military of orchestrating nearly 200 charges against him, ranging from rioting and corruption to terrorism since his ouster.
Khan swept to power in 2018 when his PTI won the 2018 parliamentary elections, but he developed differences with the military over key appointments and foreign policy matters that critics blame for his removal from office.
The military has directly ruled Pakistan for more than three decades, and generals have been constantly accused of playing a role in making or dislodging elected governments during most of the other 77 years of Pakistani independence.
The security institution denies it interferes in political matters, but its former chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, admitted in a nationally televised speech just days before his retirement in November 2022 that the military had been meddling in politics for the past 70 years.
A government crackdown backed by the military has detained scores of PTI leaders in recent months, forcing many others to quit the party or join anti-Khan political forces. The party is also banned from holding election rallies, and mainstream media cannot air Khan’s name.
Despite the crackdown, recent public opinion polls showed Khan is the most popular politician in Pakistan, and the PTI is the largest national political party.
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Russia Attacks Ukraine with 35 Drones
Ukraine Aid Funding Lapse Impacting Refugee Resettlement in US
The debate over funding Ukraine in its war with Russia has wide-reaching implications, even far away from the front lines. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on the impact to refugee resettlement in Chicago, the second-largest home in the U.S. to Ukrainians who have fled the war.
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Malawi Launches New COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Amid Rising Cases
Blantyre, Malawi — The Malawi government and the World Health Organization launched a new COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Monday in 10 of the country’s 29 districts. This is partly in response to new cases confirmed in the past three weeks in several districts across the country.
Nsanje District in southern Malawi currently leads in the number of COVID-19 cases recorded this year.
George Mbotwa, spokesperson for the district health office, said the district has registered 17 new cases in the past three weeks and some are health workers.
“Initially there were two, but we had up to eight cases that were health workers,” he said. “Some of them have now been confirmed as negative, and others are being followed up to ensure that they are fully recovered before they can resume work.”
By Monday, Malawi cumulatively recorded 89,202 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 2,686 deaths, since the first cases were confirmed in the country in April 2020.
Malawi’s Ministry of Health says the new vaccination campaign will help boost the number of people getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccination rates in some areas of Malawi are as low as 40%.
It also says the WHO-funded campaign would help avoid waste of the vaccine as was the case in 2020 when the government destroyed nearly 20,000 expired AstraZeneca doses.
Many of those doses expired due to vaccine hesitancy amid concerns of its safety and efficacy.
However, recent government public health campaigns on the importance of COVID-19 shots have helped defeat that hesitancy.
Mary Chawinga, a mother of two of Machinjiri Township in Blantyre, said she has had the vaccine and is awaiting a booster.
“And I am ready to take my children, because prevention is better than [a] cure they say,” Chawinga said. “You never know how the wave will be like this time around considering the way it was way back in 2020. We have had it in 2021, and now this is 2024.”
Another mother of two, Habeeba Nyasulu, said she received the COVID-19 doses during the first campaign and encourages others to get the shot.
“I know that we are not safe until everyone is safe,” she said. “So, let others also receive the vaccine. I know that the vaccine does not prevent us from getting infected, but it helps us when we contract it not to be critically ill.”
Maziko Matemba is a community health care ambassador in Malawi, said the COVID-19 threat is still present in the country.
“Malawi didn’t vaccinate a required number of people against COVID-19, because the targeted population was about 11 million Malawians,” Matemba said. “But we were less than half about 2 or 3 million Malawians who were able to get vaccinated.”
Matemba said the country now needs to have the vaccine in the right places and encourage more people to get vaccinated.
The Ministry of Health says the new campaign targets 10 of the country’s 29 health districts that have recently recorded new cases. These include Machinga, Blantyre, Dowa, Mzimba and Nsanje districts.
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