<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Baricitinib, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, cut hospitalized Covid-19 patients’ risk of death by 13%, regardless of what other Covid treatments were also being used, giving hospitals an affordable new way to reduce Covid mortality, according to a University of Oxford <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-03-03-recovery-trial-shows-baricitinib-reduces-deaths-patients-hospitalised-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> published Thursday.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Of the 4,148 patients who received baricitinib, 12% died within 28 days, compared to 14% who did not receive the medication, a reduction of 13%, according to the study, which was published on the University of Oxford’s website.



Patients taking baricitinib had an 80% chance of being discharged from hospital alive within 28 days, compared to 78% among patients not taking the medication, according to the study.



The beneficial effect of baricitinib was consistent even when used alongside other Covid treatments, including some antiviral medications, steroids and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/02/11/fda-authorizes-eli-lilly-antibody-treatment-that-fights-omicron/">monoclonal antibody</a>&nbsp;treatments, researchers found.



Now that baricitinib’s effectiveness has been proven, it should be made as accessible and affordable as possible for patients everywhere, said University of Oxford Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases Peter Hornby.



Baricitinib is not the only anti-inflammatory treatment shown to reduce Covid death risk—the medications dexamethasone and tocilizumab have previously shown similar benefits, researchers said.



The study monitored a total of 8,156 hospitalized patients with severe Covid from February to December 2021.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



The Oxford University study confirmed the findings of prior, less extensive&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/arthritis-drug-shown-reduce-risk-covid-death-large-uk-trial-2022-03-03/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trials</a>&nbsp;by U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers. Like some other anti-inflammatory drugs, baricitinib has an immunosuppressant effect, weakening the overactive immune response that causes lung damage among patients with severe Covid, said Oxford Population Health Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology Martin Landray in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-03-03-recovery-trial-shows-baricitinib-reduces-deaths-patients-hospitalised-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>. The beneficial effect of baricitinib for Covid patients is additional to the effects of other immunosuppressant anti-inflammatories like dexamethasone and tocilizumab, meaning that the treatments can be given in combination for increased effect, Landray said. Additionally, generic forms of baricitinib are relatively&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/arthritis-drug-reduces-mortality-severe-covid-19-huge-clinical-trial-finds" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">affordable</a>, according to the academic journal&nbsp;Science. Baricitinib is approved for use as an arthritis treatment in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/2434/smpc#ORIGINAL" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">U.K.</a>, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-approvals-and-databases/drug-trials-snapshots-olumiant" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">U.S.</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/olumiant" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EU</a>&nbsp;and is marketed under the brand name Olumiant by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/eli-lilly/">Eli Lilly</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/incyte/">Incyte</a>. In July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/143825/download" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">emergency use authorization</a>&nbsp;for baricitinib as a Covid treatment for patients age 2 and older.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“The pandemic is far from over, and we will likely have to contend with additional case surges in the future. It is heartening to have more mortality-reducing therapeutic options,” Emory University virologist Boghuma Titanji&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/arthritis-drug-reduces-mortality-severe-covid-19-huge-clinical-trial-finds" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;Science, in reference to the University of Oxford study.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



The study on baricitinib was part of a broader series of trials led by the University of Oxford to identify medications effective against Covid. As well as proving the effectiveness of drugs like baricitinib, the trials have shown the ineffectiveness of some other reputed Covid cures, such as the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/05/22/all-the-times-trump-promoted-hydroxychloroquine/">promoted</a>&nbsp;by former President Donald Trump as potentially “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Oxford researchers are testing Merck’s anti-Covid pill&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/11/04/mercks-covid-pill-molnupiravir-authorized-for-first-time-in-the-uk/">molnupiravir</a>, GlaxoSmithKline’s monoclonal antibody treatment&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/11/19/intramuscular-injection-of-monoclonal-antibodies-simplifies-covid-treatment/">sotrovimab</a>&nbsp;and the anti-diabetic medication empagliflozin for their effects on Covid recovery,&nbsp;Science&nbsp;reported.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/arthritis-drug-reduces-mortality-severe-covid-19-huge-clinical-trial-finds" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Arthritis drug reduces mortality in severe COVID-19, huge clinical trial finds”</a> (Science)



By Zachary Snowdon Smith, Forbes Staff

Old Woman’s Hands

Arthritis Drug Cuts Covid Deaths 13% Among Severe Cases, Study Finds

AS COVID-19 VARIANTS SURGE across the world, so does the contentious concomitant conversation: should countries and companies make vaccines mandatory? Politicians are faced with both increasing pressure and protests against the impending policy around the world.



South Africa too has had its share of raging debates around this issue. In a nationwide address in November last year, just as Omicron was making a grand appearance, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that “the government has set up a task team to undertake broad consultations on making vaccination mandatory for specific activities and locations”.



He reiterated this at the 110th anniversary of the African National Congress (ANC) on January 8: “To enable our economy to return to full operation, we urge everyone in South Africa who is not yet vaccinated to ensure they are vaccinated as soon as possible.



“The ANC urges the government to finalize a policy on 



the introduction of vaccine mandates for particular settings and activities. Such a policy would be a valuable addition to the instruments we have to contain and manage Covid-19.”



The much-disputed issue has been met with disdain in some quarters, although some businesses have already opted to make vaccines mandatory in their policies.



Business for South Africa (B4SA), an alliance of South African volunteers working with the South African government, released Mandatory Vaccination Policies – Guide &amp; Resources For Employers, a report stating that there could be no “return to normal” until a significant proportion of the population is fully vaccinated.



“Vaccines reduce severe illness, hospitalization and death amongst those who do get Covid-19. In our view, if we don’t dramatically improve the vaccination rate, we risk overburdening the health system again and forcing South Africa to consider the harsh lockdown restrictions that harm the economy, jobs and livelihoods. Vaccination can help prevent this,” the B4SA report read.



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Danie-Pretorius-half-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-54463 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Danie-Pretorius-half-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Danie-Pretorius-half-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Danie-Pretorius-half-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Danie-Pretorius-half-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Danie-Pretorius-half.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
Anything that would lead to a return to normality in society will obviously help the country’s economic



– Danie Pretorius, employment lawyer and commercial litigator, Fluxmans Attorneys
</div></div>



According to the report, multiple businesses across South Africa have already committed to implementing mandatory vaccination policies, among them Anglo American, Aspen, Dis- Chem, Big Concerts and Discovery to name a few.



Dr Ronald Whelan, head of Discovery’s Covid-19 task team and Chief Commercial Officer at Discovery Health, speaks to FORBES AFRICA about the South African-based financial services group’s decision to mandate vaccines.



The company implemented its Covid-19 vaccination policy on January 1 for its South Africa-based employees. Whelan says their latest data showed that about 97%* of Discovery’s staff members are vaccinated, which is just over 10,000 individuals.



“We’re very proud of how employees have responded to this, they’ve really stepped up to the plate, and taken a bold leadership and role modeling position, not only in corporate South Africa, but also across their communities,” Whelan states.



“Our core purpose is to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives.”



Events company Big Concerts has also been amongst the few to model the vaccine mandate strategy and practise it. Although the events industry works largely on an “industry-wide position” blueprint which entails suppliers (security force, cleaning and catering departments etc), it’s as insistent as Discovery that in dealing with an ambiguous, dispersed workforce, health needs to be prioritized.



“As employers and operators of these venues, and now I’m talking things like stadiums, we employ thousands of people,” Justin Van Wyk, the CEO of Big Concerts, tells FORBES AFRICA. “Now, these people are put into an environment, what we call high-risk congregate environments, where they are exposed to other human beings, strangers, and we have an obligation in terms of the law to protect these people and their health and safety and create a safe working environment.”



Van Wyk says that within his workforce, he has seen no pushback towards mandating vaccines.



Whereas, at Discovery, about 2.5% of the workforce are not in favor of vaccinations which then means that a deliberation between the two parties is necessary.



“There are certainly some employees against vaccines. I don’t want to call them anti-vaxxers. I think that’s become a derogatory term to some extent, I think they’re against vaccination for a variety of reasons, most particularly medical concerns, but there are also some employees that have some constitutional rights concerns,” Whelan says.



He states that Discovery will seek to accommodate those employees who may have suitable and justifiable reasons for not being vaccinated. “But for those employees who don’t have reasonable and justifiable



reasons for not wanting to be vaccinated, we’ll certainly try and work with them to understand those reasons,” Whelan explains. “If it is at all possible to convince them to get vaccinated, we will reach a common ground. But unfortunately, in a very unlikely event, if we can’t reach a common goal, they will have to part ways with us.”



“There’s no such thing as forced vaccinations, you can’t force anyone to do something,” Van Wyk adds. “A mandate basically states that this is the policy to enter this workplace or into this public establishment. You don’t have to go and vaccinate yourself&#8230; That is your constitutional right, but the consequences of that decision is yours and yours alone.”



The legal implications against a company would not be that dire, Fluxmans Attorneys, a law firm in South Africa, tells us. Danie Pretorius, an experienced commercial litigator and head of the firm’s employment law practice, says: “An employer will not be permitted to forcefully vaccinate its employees, for example holding employees down and administering the vaccine upon them. That would constitute an assault and would also infringe the constitutional right to bodily integrity. However, a refusal to be vaccinated by an employee, where his employer insists on vaccination, could have negative consequences for such an employee.”



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:26% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="683" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-683x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-54464 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dr-Ron-Whelan-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">One needs to recognize that Covid-19 has been a public health tragedy in South Africa, and indeed, globally&#8230; the vaccines have been rolled out to billions of people globally, over 6 billion people today have been vaccinated.– Dr Ronald Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer, Discovery Health</blockquote>
</div></div>



At the end of May/June last year, South Africa’s Department of Employment and Labour published a revised Covid-19 Direction on Health and Safety in the Workplace which provides guidelines for employers on the issue of mandatory vaccination.



Within the direction, it states that this is intended to guide employers, employers’ organizations, employees, trade unions, conciliators, arbitrators and the court in determining the fairness of a mandatory vaccination policy and its implementation.



Pretorius explains that if an employee refuses the vaccination on constitutional or medical grounds, the employer should investigate the validity and/or reasonableness of the refusal. Once the employer determines whether the refusal is valid and reasonable, the employer is required to take reasonable measures to accommodate the employee in the workplace.



“If reasonable accommodation is unworkable or impractical, the employer can consider dismissal for operational requirements. This 



would be particularly the case when it can be shown that vaccination is an inherent requirement for the job. For example, to make it safe for that employee and other employees, and that, without vaccination, the employee cannot render services safely.”



Gerhard Papenfus, CEO at the National Employers Association of South Africa, wrote an open letter to Ramaphosa recently stating the controversial conversation of vaccine mandates has the potential of “tearing our society apart”.



In the letter, Papenfus states that the vaccines have not been proven to provide any benefit to the community they are intended to serve, that ‘vaccinated’ individuals can both contract the virus, and infect others; after a period of months, ‘vaccines’ become counter-productive; it could damage and weaken the immune system and that there are safe and effective medical measures, other than ‘vaccination’, to protect individuals and the community from Covid-19.



“Mr. President, it is inconceivable that you are not aware of these facts,” Papenfus said in the letter. “If you are, why do you not act upon it? If you are not aware of this, why do you not allow for credible doctors and scientists, even internationally, to brief you on this? How is it that you even ignore some of the advice from the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19, appointed by the Minister of Health?”



Dr Anne Biccard, South African author and emergency doctor, explains that the issue with trying to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine is that South Africa has not mandated any vaccines.



It is advised that parents get their children vaccinated, and theoretically, if they are not, they won’t be able to go to school.



“But in reality, actually, the government doesn’t take a stance on vaccines, even for children, which is longer for Covid-19 vaccines to be mandatory or compulsory,” Biccard says. “There are only a few countries in the world where those are mandatory, I think France and Canada, both of them make children’s vaccines mandatory. So I suppose they would have the platform from which to now make adult vaccination mandatory.



“I think in South Africa, we would struggle to make it mandatory because nothing is mandatory yet. So to make this mandatory is going to be a real stretch and obviously there is going to be a legal implication because people, some anti-vaxxers, are saying it’s against their rights to freedom.”



Countries around the world, like Austria, the Czech Republic, Ecuador and Germany, have mandated vaccines for either specific occupations or all adults. France now has a vaccine pass and has made it legally necessary to be vaccinated to access events and eateries.



At the end of 2021, similar actions were underway on the African continent too, with countries such as Nigeria and Kenya considering or implementing mandates.



However, in Kenya, according to reports, a judge suspended a government directive pending a case hearing that was filed by a businessman who termed it a gross violation of the Constitution.



“Information from all over the world, including the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States of America, indicates that ‘vaccinated’ people are more susceptible to Omicron than ‘unvaccinated’ people,” Papenfus added in his letter.



Biccard notes that although it is difficult to mandate vaccines,



it’s also difficult to know what the long-term effects could be of the vaccine.



“We can’t say what the long-term sequelae of the vaccine are but I think a lot of anti-vaxxers are very clear on what the dangers are. But I’m not sure how they got to be clear on that information because I’m not even clear on it,” Biccard adds.



“But I would encourage everyone to get vaccinated because it’s the only defence we have.”



And it is probably the only defence, for now, to set the country’s economy on the path of recovery.



“Anything that would lead to a return to normality in society will obviously help the country’s economic recovery process,” Pretorius adds. “The only weapon against the pandemic to date that has had any effect on the spread and consequences of the virus has been the advent of vaccines. Should more people become vaccinated, [it] would provide the only currently available possibility of a return to normality in society.”



“One needs to recognize that Covid-19 has been a public health tragedy in South Africa, and indeed, globally,” Whelan adds. “So, the vaccines have been rolled out to billions of people globally, over 6 billion people today have been vaccinated.



“And the results are excellent, both from a safety perspective, as well as from an efficacy perspective. So I think it’s incumbent on us against the backdrop of a public health tragedy to use the tools that are available and proven to be safe and effective to mitigate any risk of further disease and death.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-2022-03-02-at-15.45.44.png" alt="" class="wp-image-54466" width="417" height="378" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-2022-03-02-at-15.45.44.png 832w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-2022-03-02-at-15.45.44-300x272.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Screenshot-2022-03-02-at-15.45.44-768x696.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px" /><figcaption>*As of January 2022</figcaption></figure></div>



FORBES AFRICA reached out to South Africa’s Presidency for comments on vaccine mandates, however, didn’t receive any until the time of going to press.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) In Algeria

Virus. Vaccines. And Vacillations: Vaccine Mandates… And Why Everyone Is Talking About It.

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Roughly 5.2 million children around the world have lost a parent or caregiver to Covid-19, according to a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(22)00005-0/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> published in the Lancet Child &amp; Adolescent Health medical journal, a figure that dramatically accelerated as the pandemic continued leaving many of the world’s most vulnerable people without the support or resources they need as existing care systems struggle to cope.  



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



The estimate is based on modeling of mortality data from 20 countries including the U.S., England, India and Peru from March 2020 to October 2021.&nbsp;



Estimates of the numbers of children affected by the death of a parent or caregiver nearly doubled in the six months from May 2021 through October 2021 compared to the first 14 months of the pandemic (March 2020 through April 2021), the researchers found.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Data from recent months, which would account for the wave of omicron infections, “may push the true toll even higher,” said University College London’s Professor Lorraine Sherr, the study’s senior author.



Though large numbers of young children were orphaned by Covid—nearly 500,000 children ages 0-4 and nearly 740,000 ages 5-9—adolescents aged 10-17&nbsp; (2.1 million children) accounted for almost two out of three children who lost a parent or carer to Covid-19.



Three out of four children who lost a parent to Covid during the pandemic lost their father, the study found, which the researchers said is in line with a trend towards later fatherhood and the increased risk of Covid-19 in older people.&nbsp;



The researchers said children who have lost a parent or caregiver are at greater risk of poverty, exploitation, abuse, HIV infection, mental health issues and leaving school to care for younger siblings and urged governments to ensure children are considered in pandemic response efforts.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



200,500. That’s how many U.S. children lost one or both parents to Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to the group’s estimate.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



The study’s authors compared the death toll of Covid-19 to that of HIV/AIDS, which has also left millions orphaned around the world. Covid-19 has done so much more rapidly, said Sherr, orphaning the same number of children as HIV/AIDS did in 10 years in just two. Study author Professor Chris Desmond, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, said the global health community must build on the two decades worth of experience in supporting vulnerable children through the HIV/AIDS epidemic and offer the same support to children who have lost parents due to Covid-19. “We have seen that timely, responsive, and supportive intervention transforms damage into lifelong dividends. Hesitation is a luxury we cannot afford.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



The precise numbers of children orphaned by Covid-19. The researchers’ analysis is based on modeling and the best available data, but they acknowledge this cannot measure the actual number of children affected by Covid-19 and that many countries do not have robust reporting systems for births or deaths.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



Writing in a linked comment, the University of Texas’ Dr. Michael Goodman described the modeling as “an ongoing attempt to hit a moving target—heart-wrenching and unavoidably incomplete.” Goodman, who was not involved in the study, said the model only provided “time, person and place” and not the important social structures children are integrated in. “To best protect children, we must consider the individual, family, community, national, and global factors that affect their wellbeing,” he said, adding the issue is arising “at a time nearing resource exhaustion across multiple systems.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/23/asia/hong-kong-family-separated-covid-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Parents separated from baby as Hong Kong clings to zero-Covid</a>&nbsp;(CNN)



<a href="https://time.com/6111902/covid-orphans-coping/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Up to 5 Million Children Have Lost Parents During the Pandemic. Here&#8217;s How They&#8217;ve Coped</a> (Time)



By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff

Girl with protective mask looking on the window in darkness

More Than 5 Million Children Worldwide Have Lost A Parent Or Caregiver To Covid, Study Suggests

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Mosquitoes can learn to avoid pesticide after a single non-lethal pesticide exposure, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05754-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> published Thursday in Nature, highlighting an overlooked challenge in fighting the spread of diseases and parasites like malaria, which has grown <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/06-12-2021-more-malaria-cases-and-deaths-in-2020-linked-to-covid-19-disruptions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more widespread</a> and severe due to Covid-19 healthcare disruptions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Researchers studied two mosquito species that are common in tropical and subtropical areas around the world: Culex quinquefasciastus—which spreads avian malaria, Zika virus and West Nile virus—and Aedes aegypti—which spreads dengue fever and yellow fever.



Mosquitoes learned to associate the smell of pesticide with the negative effects of pesticide contact, and were willing to forgo blood-feeding to avoid landing in an area that smelled of pesticide, researchers said.



Aedes aegypti mosquitoes conditioned to avoid pesticide were three times more likely than unconditioned mosquitoes to survive an experiment in which they were offered a chance to fly across pesticide-treated nets to feed on blood.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Mosquitoes have grown more resistant to pesticide in recent years, and researchers identified mosquito cognition as an overlooked factor in this change. However, new pesticide solutions could be developed with a delayed reaction, so that a mosquito that survives exposure will not learn to associate the smell of the pesticide with the negative experience, Frederic Tripet, director of the Centre for Applied Entomology and Parasitology at Keele University in the U.K., <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/mosquitos-smart-learning-avoid-pesticides-kill-study/story?id=82929670&amp;cid=social_twitter_abcn" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a> ABC. Mosquito learning could also be disrupted by adding an attractive smell to pesticide, Tripet said. Mosquitoes are responsible for spreading numerous diseases and parasites, most notably malaria, which infected about <a href="https://www.who.int/teams/global-malaria-programme/reports/world-malaria-report-2021" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">241 million</a> people worldwide in 2020, according to the World Health Organization. Though malaria occurs across the globe, it is most widespread and deadly in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for about 95% of malaria cases and 96% of malaria deaths in 2020, the WHO reported. About 80% of deaths in the region were among children under 5. In October, the WHO <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberleespeakman/2021/10/06/who-backs-widespread-use-of-first-malaria-vaccine/">endorsed</a> GlaxoSmithKline’s Mosquirix, the first malaria vaccine.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<a href="https://www.who.int/teams/global-malaria-programme/reports/world-malaria-report-2021" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">627,000.</a>&nbsp;That’s about how many people died of malaria worldwide in 2020, according to the WHO, a rise of about 69,000 deaths over 2019. About 47,000 of these additional deaths were linked to healthcare disruptions during the Covid pandemic.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



&#8220;Mosquitoes have been learning,&#8221; Tripet&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/mosquitos-smart-learning-avoid-pesticides-kill-study/story?id=82929670&amp;cid=social_twitter_abcn" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;ABC. &#8220;We just didn&#8217;t know about it.&#8221;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberleespeakman/2021/10/06/who-backs-widespread-use-of-first-malaria-vaccine/">“WHO Backs Widespread Use Of First Malaria Vaccine”</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/13/what-would-happen-if-we-eliminated-the-worlds-mosquitoes/">“What Would Happen If We Eliminated The World&#8217;s Mosquitoes?”</a> (Forbes)



By Zachary Snowdon Smith, Forbes Staff

Biting mosquito

Mosquitoes Can Learn To Avoid Pesticide After A Single Exposure, Study Says

The new pan-African payment and settlement system launched recently is to reduce cross-border payment fees and transaction delays across the continent, and eventually help businesses scale.



WHETHER IT’S A HARD-WORKING MIGRANT remitting funds home to his family or a trader making a cross-border payment, sending money within Africa has been hitherto costly and slow. But a new pan-African endeavour might change both for the better reducing the reliance on foreign currency.



“It is set to save the continent up to $5 billion annually, which is the amount currency convertibility costs Africa,” said Benedict Oramah, Afreximbank President, about the initiative in January in Accra, Ghana.



The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), a centralized payment and settlement infrastructure for intra-African trade and commerce payments developed with Afreximbank and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat, is set to allow for quick cross-border payments, reducing the reliance on the US dollar, UK pound and the delays these currencies incur. This follows a successful trial in the West African Monetary Zone (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and Guinea).



Currently, of the 42 currencies on the continent, few have value outside their country. AfCFTA is trying to bring together all 54 African countries to trade under a single market with liberalized tariffs and the removal of non-tariff barriers to cross-border trading.



Thirty nine countries are onboard so far, Secretary-General of AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene, has said.



“PAPSS is designed to be a fundamental rail connecting African markets to each other and enabling individuals, businesses and governments on the continent to trade with each other seamlessly.



PAPSS will provide fresh impetus for businesses to scale more easily across Africa, essentially eliminating the borders that have balkanized us and robbed us of our economic prosperity for so long,” said Mike Ogablu III, CEO of PAPSS, at the operational roll-out of PAPSS on September 28 last year.



PAPSS claims it aims to ease the transactional burden on consumers. Prior to this, local currencies had to be converted into hard currencies, with transfers taking days. PAPSS attests that compliance, legal and sanction checks are performed instantly, and near-instant payments processed in 120 seconds.



Dominating news over the last two years, cryptocurrency is the new lexicon for money. How would the crypto world see this? Speaking with FORBES AFRICA, Blockonomics, a decentralized Bitcoin payment solution, offers how crypto and initiatives like PAPSS can work for greater financial freedom for Africa.



Blockonomics is trying to solve the problem of long waits and fees from a different direction.



Its VP of Growth Frederick Coleman says the decentralized nature of crypto exchange is just another avenue for Africans to use, as Bitcoin transcends borders.



“In conjunction, cryptocurrency and centralized initiatives like PAPSS can work, expanding the rights and horizons of people. Initiatives like PAPSS are needed; it doesn’t matter where it comes from, as long as people benefit,” says Coleman.



Forbes reports that mobile money transactions in Africa amounted to nearly $500 billion during the pandemic.



Mobile remittances in Africa will likely be positively impacted the most by PAPSS. In the past, Africans have had to find alternatives to traditional banks to make cross-border payments to friends and family.



Cash is still king on the continent. Oliver O’Brien, Executive Head of Strategy and Business Development at Mukuru, a money transfer provider in Africa, says PAPSS will allow access to online networks for cash-dependent clients. O’Brien says it may assist people on the journey from the informal to the formal, digital economy.



“Mukuru is very excited about the launch of the PAPSS. Systems like these that offer fast, affordable bank-to-bank (digital) cross-border transactions disrupt the existing slow, costly international payment networks that typically only cater for high-value bank transfers,” says O’Brien.



US based mobile payments company Boku, which has a strong presence in Africa, concurs.



“The creation of PAPSS is no doubt a good thing for everyone involved in the African economy, including payments providers. Boku is in favor of anything that enables more freeflowing movement of funds, especially across borders,” says Josh Gosliner, Boku’s Head of Marketing and Communications.



Prospects for a more unified African economy may begin with PAPSS, and time will tell if this means greater financial inclusion for traders, migrants and the majority of informal entrepreneurs thriving in Africa’s innards.

Closeup of young female hands holding smartphone and bank card while making online payment in cafe drinking coffee

The Newly Launched Payments System Set To Save Africa $5 Billion Annually

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



By 2030, almost all countries will experience “extreme hot” weather every other year due mainly to greenhouse gas pollution by a handful of big emitters, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00320-6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">paper</a> published Thursday by Communications Earth &amp; Environment, reinforcing forecasts that the coming year will be one of the hottest on record.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Ninety-two percent of countries will experience “extreme hot” temperatures, or temperatures that would have been observed just once per century in pre-industrial times, every other year, according to the study.



Without the influence of the five biggest emitters—China, the U.S., the European Union, India and Russia—only about 46% of countries would be likely to experience extreme heat with that frequency, researchers found.



Tropical African regions will be most severely impacted due to their low temperature variability from year to year, the study concluded.



The projections were based on emissions goals set before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and researchers said that the scenario they predicted could be averted if “substantial improvements” were made to national climate policies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Global warming has already had a dramatic effect on Earth’s climate, with average temperatures for the year&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2021/12/21/2022-will-be-one-of-earths-hottest-years-uk-climatologists-predict/?sh=2e64efcc37c6">forecast</a>&nbsp;to rise 1.96 degrees over pre-industrial averages, contributing to increased&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2021/12/16/floods-will-cost-us-businesses-49-billion-next-year-study-says/?sh=3375154d33ad">flooding</a>&nbsp;that could cost U.S. businesses $49 billion. Climate change has also yielded some unpredictable effects, such as a boom in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2021/12/14/melting-arctic-creating-new-crises-from-infrastructure-collapse-to-a-beaver-invasion-researchers-say/?sh=66054a82ea01">beaver populations</a>, leading to increased dam-building and subsequent flooding in the Arctic tundra.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CONTRA</h2>



Though <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2021/12/13/declining-car-emissions-saved-us-270-billion-in-one-year-researchers-say/?sh=4e6050983de4">transportation</a> still accounts for roughly 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, new vehicles are among the least polluting ever manufactured. Thanks in part to increasingly stringent environmental standards, carbon dioxide emissions reached a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">record low</a> for new cars in 2020. In 2017, reduced vehicle emissions saved about $270 billion in the U.S., according to a Harvard University <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/118/51/e2107402118" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220106-most-countries-may-see-annual-heat-extremes-every-second-year-study" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Most countries may see annual heat extremes every second year: study”</a>&nbsp;(France24)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2021/12/21/2022-will-be-one-of-earths-hottest-years-uk-climatologists-predict/?sh=2e64efcc37c6">“2022 Will Be One Of Earth’s Hottest Years, U.K. Climatologists Predict”</a> (Forbes)



By Zachary Snowdon Smith, Forbes Staff

Global warming, Heatwave hot sun, Climate Change, Climate emergency

By 2030, Earth Could Experience Once-Per-Century Heat Waves Every Other Year, Study Says

From a young age, Natania Botha learned resilience, and she’s taken all of her skills to drive empowerment and innovation focused on green entrepreneurship in South Africa.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I was walking on a beach in Durban, and the beach was covered in plastic. I thought to myself, ‘wow, why isn’t anyone doing anything about this’?”</blockquote>



As the battle to combat climate change becomes more intense, the world is directly experiencing the consequences and forced to make critical decisions on the planet’s future. It is the youth of today who will bear the brunt of the consequences, and it is youth who are taking charge of the narratives and activism in that battle. One such activist from South Africa making strong inroads in green entrepreneurship and youth climate activism is Natania Botha.



No stranger to challenges, Botha was born in Brits into an environment of economic hardship. Having left school at 16 due to a need to work and support her family, she managed to complete her high-school education by night. “Being a headstrong woman, I made a silent promise to myself that I will never again let my circumstances interfere with my potential…” says Botha to FORBES AFRICA.



Botha continued her education, completing a variety of courses through various entities focused on the green economy, small business development and climate change, which formed the fundamental basis for her climate advocacy. During this time however, Botha was working in marketing, and a beachfront walk changed the course of her life forever.



“I was walking on a beach in Durban, and the beach was covered in plastic. I thought to myself, ‘wow, why isn’t anyone doing anything about this’?” Botha launched a social media campaign to drive the beach clean-up, which took off. “I called my boss and I said ‘I’m resigning with immediate effect, the planet needs me more’,” she says, laughing. “My boss asked me, ‘are you crazy’?” This was the catalyst for Botha’s environmental and conservation work, mobilizing thousands in her efforts to clean up Durban’s beachfronts, including local and national government. It was during the course of this work that Botha was identified by the United Nations Environment Programme to represent South Africa at the African Youth Conference in Kenya. The idea behind the program was to facilitate advocacy for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which Botha brought focus to through education for youth in rural areas, formalizing SDGs in a South African classroom context, and which led her to the climate activism work she performs today as part of Indalo Inclusive.



The ultimate burden of the impact of climate change will be on the generations to come, which is where Botha finds her focus today – despite the world’s increasing awareness of the negative impacts of climate change, reform is not yet on a strong enough track to meet the goals outlined in the recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow. “The problems that we face are technical and complex… but it cannot be allowed to prevent us from achieving our overall goals,” says Botha. “The significance of COP26 is that it’s when world leaders need to take the commitments they’ve made seriously.” Botha’s work at Indalo aims to facilitate exactly that; the non-profit supports and promotes sustainable and responsible entrepreneurship, and has recently launched initiatives with partners



such as the South African Youth Climate Innovation Awards in partnership with the British High Commission.



“Young people will be resolving problems that were created in the past, and young people need to create innovations that will save the world.”

Processed with Lensa with Magic Correction & PT2 filter

A Beachfront That Changed The Landscape For This Climate Activist

SAFRICA-UNREST-ECONOMY

South Africa’s Townships: The Economy That Never Sleeps

A vaccine that has taken almost three decades to produce is finally ready to give hope to thousands affected by malaria.



BY PAULA SLIER AND SASHA STAR



NO ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED THAT THE last 18 months would have been defined by a virus that caused the world to quite literally shut down. As the infection rate rose by the hour, talk turned to vaccines and scientists raced to create an agent that would provide the global population with a chance of survival.



With the number of fatalities increasing, it seemed as though the immunity-boosting serum could not come quick enough. It took less than a year for the Covid-19 vaccine to be developed, with more than half of the world’s citizens having already received at least one dose. 



Now, a completely different vaccine, which has taken almost three decades to produce, is finally ready to give hope to hundreds of thousands of people affected by another deadly illness. For the very first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has endorsed a vaccine to fight malaria — a disease that claims the lives of 400,000 people annually. 



“We’ve reached a point where [the death rate] has plateaued for the last six years, but we have not seen progress in Africa against malaria with 260,000 children still dying every year. It’s just unacceptable,” says Dr Mary Hamel, the team lead for the WHO’s Malaria Vaccine Implementation Program. 



A pilot initiative in Ghana, Malawi and Kenya that began in 2019 showed that RTS,S/AS01, under the brand name Mosquirix, has the ability to reduce the risk of severe malaria by up to 40%. The GlaxoSmithKline-manufactured drug does so by targeting the malaria parasite during the brief time that it exposes itself to the body’s immune system. 



“Trying to develop a vaccine for a parasite is a lot more complex than for a virus,” explains Dr Jaishree Raman who heads the Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring Unit at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). “Malaria parasites either hide in a red blood cell or in liver cells, so there’s a very short period in which a vaccine can attack it.” 



The effects of malaria are not pleasant. Fever, vomiting and fatigue are common, while the worst cases result in fatalities. The majority of children who grow up in high-risk areas will contract malaria once a month until they build up enough partial immunity to be infected by the disease without displaying symptoms. Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, is set to meet in December to discuss the roll-out of the jabs in low-income countries. 



These countries will then be expected to apply for funding to introduce the vaccine as part of their healthcare system to ensure that children receive the required four doses between the ages of five- and 17-months. 



“When I initially went to Kenya as a young doctor in 1995,” Hamel recalls, “the first thing I was asked by the village elders is, ‘when are we going to get a vaccine’? People trust vaccines, people know they save lives. And everyone has felt the pain of malaria. Everyone, including me, knows somebody close to them who has lost a child from malaria.” 



While the introduction of a vaccine after so many years is a clear sign of progress, Raman has warned that regular preventative protocols like bed nets still need to be followed. 



“This is not the silver bullet, it’s just an additional tool. And if people start feeling sick, they need to get treatment as soon as possible.” Living through a pandemic for the past year and a half has been traumatic for a number of reasons, but one good thing has come from it, in Hamel’s opinion. 



“I think we’ve learned from Covid and the Covid vaccine that if the international community comes together, we can make things happen. We can make sure that supply is increased, and that people are reached with a life-saving intervention.”

KENYA-HEALTH-MALARIA

Malaria Vaccines: Here’s to Another Life-Saver

SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCHERS ARE NOW developing an innovative, validated online tool to help people recognize and seek treatment for depression and mental health issues. PhD candidate Tasneem Hassem of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, along with co-founder Professor Sumaya Laher, have been awarded almost $7,000 in seed funding to further develop and commercialize the tool, aimed at allowing users to more easily recognize and obtain treatment for depression, particularly within the South African context, where low mental health awareness and access to mental health services can still be a challenge.



 “Unfortunately, low awareness of the symptoms of depression means that many people do not know when they are depressed. During our research and through interviews with stakeholders, we determined that an online screening tool would help raise awareness of depression, reduce the stigma and facilitate quality conversations between people and health professionals” says Hassem to FORBES AFRICA. 



According to a recent report in The Lancet which assessed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health in 204 countries, anxiety and depressive disorders increased by some 25% across the countries sampled, with South Africa seeing one of the highest rates of increase worldwide.



 “The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has created an environment where many determinants of poor mental health are exacerbated,” the study continued. 



This is confirmed in the South African context by the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), a mental health services and advocacy organization. 



“We know that the mental health impact during Covid has been immense – we’ve seen that at SADAG,” says Cassey Chambers, SADAG’s operations coordinator, to FORBES AFRICA. 



“Just from January this year, we received over 466,000 calls to our helplines. One in every five calls is a suicide-related issue. And that’s still a conservative figure. Our call volumes from pre-Covid [to this year] has increased by 160%. Covid has definitely impacted mental health, it’s definitely added to more depression, more anxiety, added to people’s mental health issues… Covid has definitely increased the mental health impact.” 



Ensuring mental health tools are relevant to the context and location in which they will be used is a crucial part of ethical and successful interventions, which was a criticalfocus of Hassem’s research and piloting of the app, with the guidance of healthcare professionals. 



The tool’s development funding comes through the University of the Witwatersrand’s Prospector course which aims to foster and develop promising entrepreneurial ideas in research – with Hassem’s proposal securing funding over seven other proposals, with the project being of possibly high value in South Africa, where mental health resources are extremely limited, with some four mental health spaces per 100,000 members of the population, and just 0.97 psychologists for the same number. 



“What is exciting in this instance is that the tool developed by Ms Hassem and Prof Laher has significant potential to support our communities in an illness that is prevalent, yet difficult to diagnose and treat not least because of the unfortunate stigma associated with it. Innovation must meet the real needs of our citizens, and it’s not just about profits,” comments Ela Romanowska, Director of Innovation Support at Wits Enterprise, which supports the initiative. 



“Our tool is specifically adapted to capture the unique depression symptoms experienced by South African individuals. The user receives instant, downloadable feedback that provides resources for seeking treatment or care and can be used in the comfort of one’s home, on any smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer,” explains Hassem.

Directly above shot of mother embracing depressed son on bed at home

Financing Mental Health: NEW TECH TOOL TO TREAT DEPRESSION

TOPLINE At least 92 people died and more than 100 were injured after an oil tanker exploded following a collision with a bus in the suburbs of Sierra Leone&#8217;s capital, Freetown, on Friday evening, according to authorities.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



A mortuary at a hospital in Freetown said it saw 92 bodies by Saturday morning, while the chances of survival were slim for around 30 people being treated with severe burns, according to the<a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-africa-explosions-sierra-leone-julius-maada-bio-face14a7564fa650a8ae0a73ce2ece3f?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_medium=AP&amp;utm_source=Twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;Associated Press</a>.



Victims included people who gathered to<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/fuel-tanker-blast-sierra-leone-capital-kills-least-91-says-morgue-2021-11-06/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;collect</a>&nbsp;oil leaking from the tanker, according to Reuters.



The explosion happened at an intersection outside a busy supermarket in Wellington, a crowded suburb east of Freetown, the<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59188753" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;BBC</a>&nbsp;reported.



Photos taken after the explosion showed piles of burnt cars and motorcycles.



Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr<a href="https://www.facebook.com/yakisawyerr/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> said</a> the extent of property damage in Freetown was unclear.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">My heart ❤️ goes out to all who have been killed by this tragedy&#8230; I send my condolences to family and friends and my deepest sympathy to the community. I ask Sierra Leone 🇸🇱 government to support all who have been affected by this very sad &amp; dangerous incident.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SaloneTwitter?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SaloneTwitter</a> <a href="https://t.co/bMLNpyYAnA">pic.twitter.com/bMLNpyYAnA</a>&mdash; Catherine For Madina (@CathyForMadina) <a href="https://twitter.com/CathyForMadina/status/1456904991801741314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 6, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio<a href="https://twitter.com/PresidentBio/status/1456904073941299201" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;said</a>&nbsp;that he is “deeply disturbed” by the tragedy. He added that his government “will do everything” to support families who have been affected.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



In March, a fire that broke out in one of the city’s slums left more than 80 injured and 5,000 people displaced, the<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59188753" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;BBC</a>&nbsp;reported.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/fuel-tanker-blast-sierra-leone-capital-kills-least-91-says-morgue-2021-11-06/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ninety-nine killed in fuel tanker blast in Sierra Leone capital</a>&nbsp;(Reuters)



<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/world/africa/tanker-truck-explodes-sierra-leone.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tanker Truck Explodes in Sierra Leone, Killing at Least 98</a>&nbsp;(New York Times)



<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59188753" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sierra Leone explosion: Scores dead after Freetown oil tanker collision</a> (BBC)



By Lisa Kim, Forbes Staff

A woman approaches a community-manned checkpoint in Mafaray

At Least 92 People Killed In Oil Tanker Explosion In Sierra Leone

There’s an old management adage that everyone has heard: What gets measured gets managed. And while that’s often a good thing—focusing on a metric means the issues behind it get the resources they need—it can also have unintended consequences.



That’s what’s happened with the pay gap, argues a new&nbsp;<a href="https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/research/glass-floors-and-ceilings-why-closing-the-median-wage-gap-isnt-fair" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">analysis</a>&nbsp;released Wednesday by S&amp;P Global, a provider of ratings, benchmarks and analytics. The report analyzes the gender wage gap over the last 15 years, when the ranks of female executives have grown and focus has increased on measuring the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2021/05/25/the-gender-pay-gap-why-its-still-here/?sh=51be10587baf">pay gap</a>. It finds that women are more likely than men to be paid in a tight range around median figures, and as a result, are not only underrepresented among the lowest paid executives, but much less likely to be paid at the top range, too.&nbsp;



The findings suggest companies have been overly focused on the “optics” of the issue—how their pay practices will be viewed by the public as scrutiny has grown—rather than on solving the issue, says Daniel Sandberg, senior director of quantamental research at S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence.&nbsp;



“If you&#8217;re explicitly looking at how [women] compare to a benchmark and that&#8217;s the deciding factor of whether they get a raise and how much—if you&#8217;re doing that for women and you&#8217;re not doing it with the same degree of attention for men—then that&#8217;s a problem,” Sandberg says. “That&#8217;s not equitable. That&#8217;s a different set of rules for two groups.”



The report looked at pay figures disclosed in SEC filings for about 25 executive roles at Russell 3000 companies. It found that while the median pay ratio between men and women has steadily increased in recent years, the&nbsp;average&nbsp;pay ratio has actually gone down, meaning there are more outlier paydays for men than women. “Effectively, women have been given a glass floor as redress for the still-present glass ceiling,” Sandberg writes in the report.



We spoke with Sandberg about his research and what leaders should do as a result. Excerpts from the interview have been condensed for length and clarity.&nbsp;



Jena McGregor:&nbsp;Why did you do this research?&nbsp;



Daniel Sandberg:&nbsp;Our aim with this study was to basically quantify the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elissasangster/2021/03/24/the-pay-gap-is-real-dont-let-anyone-convince-you-otherwise/?sh=18cd89017ceb">gender pay gap</a>, and we started to look at our [data] around compensation. What we ended up finding was far more interesting than just quantifying the numbers on where we are with the pay gap. The analysis suggests firms are managing the compensation of women to address this metric—the median—which is commonly watched and is commonly reported when it comes to pay equity. The way that firms are managing to [the number] is actually increasing the disparity in pay between genders. I found no record of this in the literature being reported anywhere else.&nbsp;



McGregor:&nbsp;Is this actually the approach–setting pay by relying on median benchmarks—that companies are taking when setting pay for women?&nbsp;



Sandberg:&nbsp;I&#8217;m an empiricist, so I don&#8217;t have that insight. But this is what the data indicates. The intentions obviously have to be inferred.&nbsp;



Let me first share an analogy. Let’s say three men go to a restaurant, sit down and order something to eat. The first orders a $1 bowl of ramen. The second orders a $10 salad, and the third orders a $100 steak dinner. The middle [median] item for that table is the $10 salad.&nbsp;



Now, three women sit down at the same restaurant. They all order the $10 salad. The median for their table is also that $10 salad. But the check for the table of three men is $111 while the check for the table of three women is $30. Because the high-end item, the $100 steak dinner, is so much farther from that midpoint than the low-end item, the table of women has a lower dollar value.&nbsp;



That’s what we&#8217;re seeing with compensation. There&#8217;s so much emphasis placed on the median salary for women compared to men. We see the compensation for women consolidated and compressed around this median, and that&#8217;s been a net disadvantage for women. The women in our study&nbsp;collectively&nbsp;are earning less compared to men today than they were 15 years ago, despite the fact that the median salaries for the two genders are converging.&nbsp;



Basically, women are getting that $10 salad equivalent salary, which is better than the $1 ramen. But it&#8217;s not as good as the $100 steak. That&#8217;s the behavior that we&#8217;re calling gender-based compensation management.



McGregor:&nbsp;Does the same effect happen for men? Isn&#8217;t there a broader effort by boards to say ‘we can defend $15 million paydays because that&#8217;s what our median competitor is paying, too’?&nbsp;



Sandberg:&nbsp;A survey I cited in the paper indicates 75% of firms have admitted they buy compensation benchmark data to help set pay. So there&#8217;s no denial or disagreement that firms are using benchmarks to set pay. And nothing in my research indicates the use of benchmarks is good or bad. What my analysis shows is that the benchmarks are more stringently being applied to women than men.



McGregor:&nbsp;Why do you think this is happening?&nbsp;



Sandberg:&nbsp;This is what&#8217;s being watched. The median is being heavily reported. I think the data indicate that firms are acknowledging this focus on the median and making those the numbers that they&#8217;re addressing.&nbsp;



McGregor:&nbsp;Could there be other explanations? Could it be a sign of women&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2021/01/21/why-women-fall-short-in-negotiations-its-not-lack-of-skill/?sh=38667d1e5d02">negotiating less</a>&nbsp;for the biggest pay, an issue that’s often raised?



Sandberg:&nbsp;I cannot think of another explanation. We don&#8217;t have the data to establish intentions. I think that there is a focus on this metric, the median. If you&#8217;re below this metric as a woman, you get moved up. If you&#8217;re above this metric as a woman, you are basically viewed as not in need of being moved up.



McGregor:&nbsp;If you&#8217;re a human resources or board leader or CEO reading this, what can you do about it? What should they change?



Sandberg:&nbsp;I&#8217;m not a policy expert. I&#8217;m not an H.R. expert. But these aren&#8217;t just numbers on a page. If we know the numbers then we can act to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2021/03/24/on-equal-pay-day-honoring-the-women-over-50-fighting-for-fair-wages/?sh=bc5729d1ff72">change the numbers</a>.&nbsp;



Transparency is a huge part of solving the problem. Data and analytics that go beyond a single number are a huge part of solving the problem. It&#8217;s not just about the median or the mean. It&#8217;s about understanding the whole distribution.

A protester seen holding a placard that says end gender pay

A Push To Fix Pay Equity Has Focused On The Median Pay Gap. A New Report Says Doing So Created An Unfair ‘Glass Floor.’

TOPLINE Leading companies like Nestle, Delta Air Lines and Clorox are among dozens of global firms &#8220;highly exposed&#8221; to climate hazards, a leading group of investors warned Thursday, as they urged businesses to do more to address the risks of climate change.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Fifty at-risk companies around the world are more likely to be threatened by natural disasters like floods, wildfires, extreme heat and hurricanes, according to the Institutional Investors Group On Climate Change (IIGC).



More than 50 IIGCC members—who represent some $10 trillion in assets and include Lombard Odier and Impax Asset Management—urged the at-risk businesses to do more to identify and respond to the threats in a letter Thursday, Reuters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/exclusive-centrica-nestle-swatch-among-companies-exposed-physical-climate-risks-2021-09-23/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>, and the IIGCC issued guidelines for what it expects all companies to be doing to tackle the issue.



The investors’ recommendations include developing strategies to cope with physical climate risks, building resilience to these risks, including the risks in climate governance frameworks and reporting them over time to better measure progress.&nbsp;



The physical risks of climate change also present some opportunities to business, the IIGCC report&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iigcc.org/download/building-resilience-to-a-changing-climate-investor-expectations-of-companies-on-physical-climate-risks-and-opportunities/?wpdmdl=4902&amp;refresh=614c38d2ea3961632385234" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>, like providing businesses with the opportunity to develop and adopt new technology, offer new products and services and improve their processes and infrastructure.&nbsp;



IIGCC chief executive Stephanie Pfeifer said it is “more important than ever” for investors to understand and account for the risks of climate change, adding that “companies cannot afford to ignore the impact” it might have on business.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



While investor pressure has been building for businesses to reduce carbon emissions, the more tangible physical threats can be overlooked. Marion Maloney, Head of Responsible Investment &amp; Governance at Britain&#8217;s Environment Agency Pension Fund, told Reuters there are “two parts to the climate change debate” and physical risks are often sidelined.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND&nbsp;</h2>



While critics often deride the costs of moving towards a greener economy, climate change is far more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a9dca460-f083-4b2d-91b5-94add3676e31" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">expensive</a>, according to the European Central Bank. In the U.S. alone, there have been a number of climate-related disasters this year, including severe heat waves,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/09/03/extreme-us-cold-snaps-including-texas-winter-storm-linked-to-rapid-arctic-warming-study-finds/?sh=42c74d226edc">cold</a>&nbsp;snaps, droughts, wildfires, storms and hurricanes. Around the world, the number of weather-related disasters have increased fivefold in the past 50 years and have become more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/09/01/weather-related-disasters-skyrocketed-fivefold-over-past-50-years-says-un-weather-agency/?sh=3c18650858e9">costly</a>&nbsp;but less lethal, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization. Seven of the costliest ten disasters—including the top six spots—were driven by storms and hurricanes in the U.S., the WMO found, and U.S. losses from extreme-weather events account for 38% of all global economic losses ($1.4 trillion). Estimates&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/08/hurricane-idas-damage-tally-could-top-95-billion-making-it-7th-costliest-hurricane-since-2000-.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">suggest</a>&nbsp;Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in late August, could join this list. Experts&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/08/09/code-red-for-humanity-humans-driving-unprecedented-climate-change-un-report-finds/?sh=68272b675d93">overwhelmingly</a>&nbsp;attribute this increase in severe weather to human-driven climate change.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/exclusive-centrica-nestle-swatch-among-companies-exposed-physical-climate-risks-2021-09-23/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Exclusive: Centrica, Nestle, Swatch among companies exposed to physical climate risks &#8211; investors</a>&nbsp;(Reuters)



<a href="https://www.iigcc.org/download/building-resilience-to-a-changing-climate-investor-expectations-of-companies-on-physical-climate-risks-and-opportunities/?wpdmdl=4902&amp;refresh=614c38d2ea3961632385234" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Investor expectations of companies on physical climate risks and opportunities</a>&nbsp;(IIGCC)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/09/01/weather-related-disasters-skyrocketed-fivefold-over-past-50-years-says-un-weather-agency/?sh=6773423258e9">Weather-Related Disasters Skyrocketed Fivefold Over Past 50 Years, Says U.N. Weather Agency</a> (Forbes)



By Robert Hart, FORBES STAFF

Orange Smokey SF Skyline

Nestle And Delta Are Among Dozens Of Firms Most At Risk Of Climate Change Hazards, Investors Warn

Researchers in South Africa are trialing nuclear technology as a solution to help stamp out rhino poaching and the illegal trade of its horn – which can fetch as much as $65,000 a kilo.



To the rescue of the 2,300kg rhinoceros in Africa now is an isotope smaller than its horn, injected into it.



Literally taking the illegal rhino horn industry by its horns, a team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa, is working on a potential solution that could help save the endangered species from poaching, the scourge decimating their population in the wild.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-6-of-7-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52477" width="675" height="450" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-6-of-7-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-6-of-7-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-6-of-7-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-6-of-7-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-6-of-7-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px" /></figure></div>



The Rhisotope Project that it’s called marries nuclear technology with environmental conservation, aiming to save the rhino population in Africa.



Since the late 2000s, rhino poaching numbers have increased, peaking in 2014 when 1,215 rhinos were killed in South Africa alone, as per the Department of Environmental Affairs. Thankfully, these numbers have been on the decline now, with 594 poached in 2019.



Historically poached for their horns – with an average price of $65,000 per kilo (source: wildlifejustice.org) – and used as powdered medicine in East Asia, the trading of rhino horn has become a complex, cross-border criminal enterprise worth billions of dollars.



Public efforts to draw attention to the plight of the rhino – one of Africa’s ‘Big Five’ and which mostly survives in protected areas or sanctuaries – have been successful, with funds raised for anti-poaching initiatives and habitat protection launched over the years yielding favorable results.



Yet, even with an international ban on the trade in rhino horn, a multinational smuggling infrastructure exists and that has meant the poaching of these magnificent animals has not yet been stamped out.



It has called for innovative solutions from science and technology. Rhisotope, for instance, takes aim at both the supply and demand of the illicit rhino horn trade, and is using nuclear technology.



The project was initially birthed as a scribble on a serviette during a casual lunch discussion Wits’ Professor James Larkin had with a few friends. The informal chat around the challenges of fighting rhino poaching led to an epiphany.



“What happens if you put a radioactive isotope in the rhino’s horn?” they asked.



“That was the original question,” reminisces Larkin. The offbeat idea gained momentum when Larkin, an Adjunct Professor at Wits with a background in Nuclear Security and also Director of The Radiation and Health Physics Unit, began to consider what implications this would have on the trade itself.



“The placing of an isotope in a rhino horn has two useful effects. The first is that if people [poachers or trophy- hunters] are aware that these isotopes are placed, they’re going to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’, because there will be a concern that it’s harmful to them. The second effect is that the horn is easily detectable by radiation monitors, which makes them much easier to intercept,” says Larkin in an interview with FORBES AFRICA.



In the markets of the East, the demand for rhino horns is driven by a belief in its benefits as an aphrodisiac or cure for cancer. This, especially in countries like Vietnam where traditional medicine is still popular. Its medicinal value is promoted as an expensive palliative care option, often endorsed by the desperate who seek respite from cancer. There are also studies and papers refuting this, saying that according to traditional Chinese medicine, rhino horns were used to treat typhoid fever and convulsions and not cancer.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-2-of-7-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52475" width="496" height="330" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-2-of-7-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-2-of-7-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-2-of-7-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-2-of-7-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Forbes-Rhino-Final-2-of-7-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 496px) 100vw, 496px" /></figure></div>



And then, there are other purported hypotheses driving the demand for the rhino horn – that it’s considered a symbol of wealth, or meant to be given away as expensive gifts.



The Rhisotope Project aims to address all of these aspects of consumption by allowing the rhino with the radioactive marker to be monitored.



“Right now, it’s easy for the charlatans and the snake- oil salespeople to push rhino horn as a cure for cancer or as an aphrodisiac. They have no conscience,” says Larkin. “But now, if you have a horn that’s got a radioactive isotope placed in it, for the end user, that’s it – ‘it’s radioactive, I don’t want to be paying all of this money for something that might harm me’.”



The possibility of the project being able to dip demand for the horn is crucial for future success.



Equally important is limiting the ease with which the horn is smuggled.



Relatively small and portable, the per unit weight of crushed rhino horn is reportedly worth more than diamonds, gold and even cocaine. Indeed, the transit networks that facilitate the smuggling of these horns are sophisticated multinational syndicates, with the illegal wildlife trade estimated to be $20 billion annually.



“You’ve got a whole supply chain from the team of three who are poaching the rhino; the local kingpin who sells them&#8230; a middleman who arranges the shipping, the sellers at the end of the line. Each time it changes hands, the value [of the horn] goes up. It’s a multinational trade right up there with guns, people- smuggling and drug-smuggling,” says Larkin.



So the trade and transit routes can’t be overlooked.



After the events of 9/11 in the United States (US), fears of non-state actors procuring nuclear and radioactive materials for so-called ‘dirty bombs’ rose globally.



As part of efforts to prevent this, radiation monitors were reportedly installed at border posts, ports, harbors and airports worldwide, with customs and border-post agents of all countries trained and equipped to use them. The trace amounts of radiation placed in the rhino horns by the Rhisotope Project would be detectable by existing infrastructure, and hence, be able to vastly restrict cross- border smuggling.



After the initial idea, Larkin emailed friends and colleagues in his network, scientists primarily working in nuclear research, and asked them what they thought about it.



“It was like a lightbulb going off,” he says. “You have these people with quite a specific set of skills, working on say the risk of a human being in a power station somewhere, and all of a sudden, they are presented with an interesting problem with meaningful discussion that can make a contribution to an immediate, real-world problem.”



Not long after reaching out, the Colorado State University in the US assigned students to tackle the practicalities of placing the isotope in a wild rhino, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (ROSATOM) was on board to provide seed funding and sponsor the isotopes themselves, as well as there was support from other veterinary and scientific partners such as the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) and Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).



On May 13 this year, Rhisotope entered its trial phase, with the primary goal of ensuring that the isotopes used are safe for the rhinos themselves. Two rhinos, Denver and Igor, of the Buffalo Kloof Nature Reserve in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, have had their horns injected with trace elements of harmless isotopes. Over the next three months, they will be monitored rigorously to see how the isotopes interact with their body and horn. After this, life-sized models of both black and white rhino horn heads will be 3D-printed by Wits’ engineering department for further testing.



Once this ‘safety case’ has been completed and proven, the technology will be taken to the relevant regulatory authorities for approval, with the aim of training veterinarians on safely handling and inserting the isotope into rhino horns to increase the speed and scale of the rollout.



The safety of the animals is paramount, and the practicalities and risk of placing an isotope in a wild rhino horn were not easily overcome. However, Dr William Fowlds, a wildlife veterinarian and passionate conservationist was consulted for his expertise, with all of the darting and procedures performed under his supervision.



“If it works here, we’ll share it with our colleagues in East Africa, Namibia, India, the world really,” says Larkin. There’s no stopping the project’s potential. “The next step is to see if we can extend this technology to protect other species.”

Forbes Rhino Final (4 of 7)

The Point Of The Radioactive Rhino: Nuclear Tech To the Rescue In South Africa?

With reset bilateral relations, the hill country of Rwanda is attracting fresh interest from French business. 



In May, French President Emmanuel Macron’s two-day trip to Rwanda was hailed as historic in helping reset relations between the two countries.



During the visit, Macron acknowledged France’s role in the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 that left over a million dead. “France has a role, a history and a political responsibility in Rwanda,” he said in a landmark speech delivered at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in the capital, Kigali.



But Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame insisted the visit was about “the future, not the past”. “France and Rwanda are going to relate better to the benefit of our people, politically, economically and culturally,” he said.



Testament to that is a rising French business interest in Rwanda. In the new suburb of Rebero, for example, the Vivendi Group has established a cinema hall, a games center and has plans for a Universal Music Studio. Its internet and media businesses, Canal Box and Canal Plus, is a household name in Rwanda. The group’s business, Bolloré, specializes in warehouse, logistics and customs clearance services.



Roger Nkubito, Bolloré’s General Manager in Rwanda and Burundi, reveals the company has been investing further in the country.



“Obviously, every investor wants to associate with a country that is politically stable. Without good politics, it’s always hard for investors to make quick investment decisions,” he says.



Nkubito admits that the revitalized bilateral ties have inspired the business community from France to do business in Rwanda.



“French companies at this moment are asking whether there is a possibility to have a double tax avoidance agreement signed between the two countries. That wouldn’t have happened without the two countries making efforts to talk to each other,” he asserts.



Nkubito says Bollore Logistics has now set aside $15 million to expand its reach in Rwanda.



“We are investing in the Kigali Economic Free Zone. We have completed the first phase of the project – a big modern warehouse with 10,000 square meters, which has cost us $7 million. The second phase will begin at the end of this year,” he explains.



A few kilometers away, another French firm, Duval Group, has committed millions to set up one of the largest shopping malls in the country.



Duval Group, a family-owned business which already has operations in Cameroon, Senegal, Ghana and Ivory Coast, is one of the latest French players in the Rwandan market.



The company is partnering with local businessman Vicky Murabukirwa for various planned investments.



“We are investing in Rwanda because the political landscape is conducive, the IT infrastructure is advanced, and there’s security. These are some of the key things that have attracted French investors here,” Murabukirwa says. On the cards for the group is a property complex



that will comprise duty-free shops, a four-star hotel, a hypermarket, a food court and other entertainment facilities.



Rwanda is positioning itself as an international financial center and has been working over the years to market itself as a hub for meetings, conferences and events.



According to reports, last year alone, French businesses invested $6.8 million in Rwanda.



“We have a long-term strategic vision towards Rwanda. Beyond Inzovu Mall (the real estate project), we are exploring opportunities in microfinance and insurance sectors,” Eric Duval, the Group’s Founder and Chairman, tells FORBES AFRICA.



BY JULIUS BIZIMUNGU

Category: Focus

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