India’s pandemic spillover, lands at risk + more
🌎 Your briefing from the WorldWise desk.
Welcome to WorldWise, a newsletter to help discerning readers get truly global insight where current affairs meet humanity, written by Anita Makri.
This is a Weekly Briefing with key headlines curated to make sense of the news.
It’s where the global vaccine supply buck stops.
As the surge of Covid-19 worsens, India is rising up the ranks of global pandemic hotspots: a new national record of daily cases has pushed the total count over 100,000—that’s the world’s third highest after the United States and Brazil (Al Jazeera + WaPo + Al Jazeera + VOA + LAHT + Hindustan Times + Guardian).
In response, the government is stepping up its vaccination drive ( Al Jazeera + Quartz India). And in turn—given a finite supply—that has meant placing a limit on vaccine exports.
This has a global knock-on effect.
Export limits from India could hit other countries’ immunisation drives because the company Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest COVID vaccine manufacturer, supplying doses to the COVAX facility set up to help poorer countries access vaccines (AP + Devex + Axios + Devex).
Writing in the Guardian, Achal Prabhala and Leena Menghaney lay out the events that led to this point, and sum up the consequences with this line:
“This is what happens when a third of humanity depends on one manufacturer for Covid jabs.”
It all amounts to a strong argument for waiving patents, they argue, a move that might compensate for a series of mishandlings that have left India staking a claim on supplies that should have been reserved for others.
There are moves in that direction, but it’s an uphill battle.
Meanwhile, a new variant spotted in India—which we picked up on in last week’s briefing—hasn’t had much coverage in international media, with the exception of this explainer in the Conversation.
Also echoing last week’s top line is this Conversation piece (picked up by the Guardian), which argues that variants are denting hopes of vaccination bringing the pandemic to an end any time soon. On that note, Axios is thinking ahead: it’s launched a site to track 'variants of concern'.
Scroll down for more on the pandemic—first, other news.
Beyond the pandemic
LAND & FORESTS | Last year the world lost 12% more forested area than the year before, a figure that signals the speeding up of global forest loss (NYT + Guardian + Mongabay + VOA).
Soaring prices for gold, copper and iron ore have spurred a global hunt for new business by the mining industry, and that’s raising environmental and human rights concerns. Water shortages linked to mining operations are affecting farmers in India’s Kashmir. The multinational company Anglo American won’t rule out mining on indigenous lands in the Amazon. Meanwhile, isolated indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon are fighting against extraction of balsa wood, and the influx of COVID.
Reports on three separate land-related projects in Indonesia pit the government against environmental and human rights concerns: an “enormous tourism complex in Mandalika” that’s drawn criticism from the UN; a big mining project planned for a seismically unstable area of Sumatra’s rainforest; and a government mapping project set to create a single database of the country's land area.
HUMANITARIAN | The death toll is rising in Indonesia and Timor Leste after torrential rains linked to a tropical cyclone led to multiple disasters including landslides and flash floods. At least 157 people are now thought to have lost their lives, with dozens missing and thousands left homeless (Guardian + Al Jazeera + VOA + Digital Journal + LAHT). Rescue efforts are hampered by damaged roads and ongoing rainfall (AP + WaPo).
Thousands of people have fled to Thailand and India as violence continues in Myanmar (LAHT + LAHT + BBC). Anti-coup protesters and high-profile figures continue to stand up to the military despite a harsh crackdown, including the shutting down of internet access (AP + BBC + WaPo + Euronews).
New waves of displacement are also reported from Venezuela’s westernn border with Colombia and Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where sexual violence is pervasive. Amnesty is calling for urgent support for Afghanistan’s four million internally displaced people.
DEVELOPMENT & COVID AFTERMATHS | Emerging economies are facing a debt crisis, according to the IMF, as the world’s regions start to have diverging paths to their recovery and middle-income countries are left behind by debt relief (FT + LAHT + Devex). Meanwhile, the UK and the US are slashing their aid funding to Syria, with the UK government also reducing funds for a human rights programme and research into malaria (Devex + Devex + Independent).
🔹 Other headlines that caught my eye
How coffee can help forests grow faster - Nat Geo
Iran launches operation to fight swarms of desert locusts - Al Jazeera
Oil drill threatens Namibia's unspoiled landscape - AfricaNews
India baulks at carbon neutral target as pressure grows - TRF
The pandemic is a gift to poachers in Africa - Economist
Three women working to vaccinate children against polio have been shot dead in Afghanistan by the Taliban - NYT + LAHT + Amnesty
A paediatric outbreak of HIV in a remote Pakistan city shows the urgency of global health after COVID - NYT
Inside the shady Yellow fever vaccine business in Nigeria - Premium Times
Artificial intelligence can now design new antibiotics in a matter of days - Vox
India is challenging China’s dominance in Africa through healthcare diplomacy - Quartz India
In Nairobi, female coders are flipping the Silicon Valley trope on its head - Vogue
Catching up with Covid-19
GLOBAL SOUTH SNAPSHOTS | Brazil continues to get coverage as one of the top global hotspots with implications for generating new variants (Scientific American + Guardian). A handful of reports have also come from other countries in Latin America in the past week. In Ecuador's capital Quito, hospitals are overwhelmed; Chile has closed its borders as its case count reached one million; Paraguayans are enraged by a surge that has exposed corruption; in Mexico, one the region’s hard-hit countries, people haven’t stayed away from Acapulco’s beaches and bars during the Easter holiday.
Alongside India, Bangladesh is also recording record daily COVID cases and has now enforced a week-long lockdown—in a rural area it’s been met with a violent protest that turned deadly (Al Jazeera + LAHT + WaPo). Iraq has been hit by the variant that emerged from the UK, which is fuelling a second pandemic wave (Al Jazeera + Save the Children). Gaza has reported a record of 1,061 cases.
VACCINE ACCESS | Access obstacles other than supply are starting to appear in poorer countries. The cost of administering the vaccines is one. In the case of Cote d’Ivoire, falling behind the vaccination schedule means thousands of doses could expire. Kenya has blocked private imports, reportedly out of concern about counterfeit vaccines. In Peru, a scandal that saw researchers involved in a clinical trial inoculate politicians and family members is damaging public trust. Meanwhile, Cuba is forging ahead with testing a homegrown vaccine in phase III trials, and “could become a coronavirus vaccine powerhouse”, according to the Washington Post (NPR Goats & Soda + LAHT + WaPo).
How did rich countries get to the front of the vaccine queue? The answer lies in how, and when, deals were struck, according to the New York Times.
SCIENCE AT A GLANCE | Indoor spaces are still prime COVID-risk hotspots. More pregnant women have died and stillbirths increased steeply during the pandemic, according to research that also shows increases in maternal anxiety and symptoms of depression (NYT + CNN + TRF). Virus variants can infect mice, which suggests that mutations are helping the coronavirus infect more animal hosts. Cue a COVID vaccine for animals, reportedly the world’s first, made in Russia. Back to humans, and new evidence presented by Pfizer that says its vaccine is powerfully protective in adolescents ages 12 to 15 (Axios + NYT); also that in adults, it’s 91.3% effective for at least 6 months (Axios + TIME + CIDRAP). Meanwhile, concerns have grown over a link between the AstraZeneca shot and a blood clot risk for people under 60 years of age, with Germany and a handful of other countries now restricting use of the vaccine (Science + AP + WaPo).
TRACING THE ORIGINS | In last week’s briefing we covered the first analyses of results from the joint WHO-China investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus. There’s been much more coverage since, on every possible angle (Reuters + Axios + DW + Nature + Economist + NPR + CIDRAP), but little that changes the overall picture: we still don’t know the details, and several scenarios still stand. Here’s a take, from Nature’s Smriti Mallapaty, on what’s next in the search.
🔹 Other headlines that caught my eye
Yemen receives first batch of COVID vaccines - Al Jazeera
Madagascar to join global vaccine initiative - BBC
Many of Lebanon’s children ‘may never get back to school’ - Al Jazeera
Crystal meth use rises during lockdown in Zimbabwe - Guardian
Tanzania: Will the new president reverse one of the most self-defeating coronavirus policies in the world? - Economist
COVID means closing global gender gap 'will take extra 36 years' - Euronews + TRF + WaPo
World leader call for global pandemic treaty - Guardian
What the history of pandemics can teach us about resilience - NYT 🌎
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