In the face of broken public health systems and populations weakened by hunger and communicable disease, particularly HIV and TB, an uncontrolled Covid-19 outbreak in southern Africa could wreak havoc and set back development, democracy and human rights by decades.
Human Rights – a vaccine to limit the spread of Covid-19
According to President Ramaphosa Covid-19 is ‘a medical emergency far graver than what the world has experienced in over a century’. He told the nation that: ‘Never before in the history of our democracy has our country been confronted with such a severe situation.’
Call for Action: Covid-19 mass education and decisive action now
A Call to Action made by the Civil Society Coordinating Collective, an informal network of up to 50 organisations based mainly in Gauteng and committed to building a coalition in uniting progressive forces in our struggle for social justice.
Whither Covid-19? An interview with SA’s chief virus hunter
Professor Lynn Morris has a lifetime of experience fighting viruses. In her last 27 years at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, she has encountered HIV, Ebola, TB, Listeria, Klebsiella and a multitude of ‘lesser’ pathogens. She thinks that Covid-19 presents one of the greatest challenges yet to both South Africa and the world.
We need unity and urgency NOW to stop Coronavirus
Let’s be clear: Our people have no reserves left for another disaster. HIV, tuberculosis, Life Esidimeni, more and more people dying of cancer; diseases that have eaten up our reserves and capacity to respond to a catastrophe. Unemployment has sapped our morale. Hunger is endemic. Our public health systems are all overstretched.
450 US health experts send open letter to Vice President Pence on ‘Achieving a Fair and Effective response to Covid-19’
There are lessons to be learned from the US, where it appears that the Covid-19 virus may soon be entering an exponential phase of transmission. California has declared a state of emergency, a school district has closed in Seattle and a cluster of cases have been identified in New York City. In days ahead, Covid-19 may spread more rapidly and there are concerns that inequalities in the US, particularly in access to affordable healthcare and medical insurance, may facilitate more rapid transmission than in other developed countries.
Let the children starve?
It is not uncommon to see women, often elderly, with infant children sitting at road intersections begging for money. It’s hard not to be moved by the plight of both woman and child. It’s like witnessing a living, walking, crawling billboard advertising poverty, unemployment and hunger.
Coronavirus: Why protecting human rights matters in epidemics
The danger of a virus that could rapidly spread across the world and potentially kill millions of people has long been warned of. As far back as 1996, the World Health Organisation was warning that 17-million people a year were dying prematurely because of infectious diseases and that ‘at least’ 30 new diseases had emerged in the last 20 years which ‘together threaten the health of hundreds of millions of people’.
Category: Blog
| Tagged: Human rights, Civil society, Feature, Covid-19