21, July 2021
Hundreds of Ugandans given fake Covid jabs 0
At least 800 people in Uganda were given fake coronavirus vaccines — some injected with water — in a scam that involved “unscrupulous” doctors and health workers, government officials said Wednesday.
The counterfeit jabs were administered over May and June during a deadly surge of the coronavirus in the East African nation, when new infections soared to record highs of about 1,700 cases per day.
The fraudsters targeted people looking to pay for immunisation, including corporate employees, at a time when vaccines were in short supply, said Dr Warren Naamara, the director of a health services monitoring unit under the presidency.
“Some unscrupulous individuals with intentions of making money, duped members of the public into a fake Covid-19 vaccine exercise,” Dr Naamara told AFP.
“We have arrested two medical workers in the scam, and one medical doctor is on the run.”
He said those conned into getting a fake vaccine — around 800 people — should not be alarmed as tests indicated the vials contained nothing dangerous.
“Some had water in them,” he added.
The scammers charged recipients between 80,000 and 500,000 Ugandan shillings (around $25-$120 / 20-100 euros) for a fake shot, officials said.
The health ministry said Wednesday that the government was providing free and approved Covid-19 jabs at designated vaccination sites.
On June 18, as coronavirus cases and deaths in Uganda surged to record highs, President Yoweri Museveni announced a freeze on all public and private transport for 42 days, and imposed a strict dusk-to-dawn curfew to try and drive numbers down.
The veteran president warned that hospitals were full and not coping with the outbreak.
Since then, infection numbers have dipped, with 252 cases reported on Wednesday.
Uganda has overall recorded 91,162 infections, of which 2,425 have been fatal, since the pandemic began, according to the health ministry’s latest tally Wednesday.
Source: AFP
26, July 2021
Malaysian doctors stage walkout amid worsening Covid outbreak 0
Hundreds of junior doctors at state-run Malaysian hospitals staged walkouts Monday demanding better conditions as the country faces its worst coronavirus outbreak yet.
Dressed in black and holding signs with slogans including “equal pay, equal rights, equal opportunity” and “we are your future specialists”, they protested at medical facilities nationwide.
The doctors are on contracts for a set period and say their treatment is worse than that of permanent government staff, even as they have found themselves on the frontline of the fight against Covid-19.
They complain of a lack of job security, poor benefits and that very few are eventually offered permanent positions.
We want “equal rights, to be a permanent doctor,” said a medic at a government hospital that treats virus patients outside Kuala Lumpur.
“We would definitely not be here if we were treated fairly… we should be appreciated for what we do,” the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
The medic was among dozens who took part in the action at the hospital, which lasted around half an hour.
Local media reported that several hundred participated across the country, but some doctors complained they were threatened by police and senior hospital staff in a bid to halt the protests.
Those involved said senior doctors took over their duties before they walked out, to ensure that patient care was not jeopardised.
Malaysia is currently battling its most serious outbreak, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant. Officials have reported over one million cases and about 8,000 deaths.
There are over 23,000 doctors on these contracts in Malaysia — about 45 percent of the total medical doctors in the public healthcare system, according to official estimates.
Last week, the government said it would extend junior doctors’ contracts for up to four years in a bid to forestall the protests.
But they stopped short of offering permanent jobs, and the organisers of Monday’s walkout criticised the move as “short-sighted”.
AFP