New Zealand to repeal smoking ban for tax cuts

New Zealand to repeal smoking ban for tax cuts

New Zealand’s new government has announced it will scrap the nation’s world-leading smoking ban to help fund tax cuts. According to the BBC, the change has shocked health experts. The legislation, introduced under the previous Jacinda-Ardern-led government, planned to ban cigarette sales next year to anyone born after 2008.

November 27, 2023 7

Africa

WHO says the arrival of malaria vaccines in Africa are a ‘breakthrough moment’

More than 330,000 doses of the World Health Organisation-recommended RTS,S malaria vaccine have arrived in Cameroon – a historic step towards broader vaccination against one of the deadliest diseases for African children. Dominika Mortimer reports on the development.

November 23, 2023 11

Africa

Uganda investigates unidentified illness

Ugandan health authorities are investigating an unidentified disease outbreak that has killed at least 12 people in a span of two weeks in Kyotera district in the central region. The BBC reports that affected patients had rashes on the skin which kept widening, before dying in a matter of days while some had swollen limbs. The country’s Ministry of Health has collected fresh samples but the findings are yet to […]

November 22, 2023 8

Namibia

Mutorwa calls on stakeholders to invest more in road safety

Works and Transport Minister, John Mutorwa, expressed the need for stakeholders to find more ways to invest in the road safety across the African continent. Mutorwa in remarks delivered on his behalf during the commemoration of the 12th Africa Road Safety Day in Swakopmund on Sunday, recognised and commended current Sub-sectoral interventions and initiatives but stressed the requirement for stakeholders to dig deeper into their reserves to make national roads […]

November 20, 2023 13

Health / Medical

Namibian Women Help Prevent HIV and Cervical Cancer by Encouraging Their Male Partners to Get Circumcised

Christmas Shikongo is a 33-year-old father of three and a community mobilizer working to reduce HIV-related deaths in Omuhongo Village, northern Namibia. For months, Christmas has been educating and counseling adolescent boys, men, and their partners on the health benefits of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) in preventing HIV. As he escorted some of his community members to undergo the procedure, he carried a secret: fear and uncertainty made him […]

November 3, 2023 25