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



With a potential winter and fall surge of the flu, Covid and RSV, some experts recommend getting all three shots at the same time, while limited research shows doing so might cause rare side effects.=



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



It’s “acceptable” to get the new respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine co-administered with other vaccines, including the flu and Covid vaccines,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2023-06-21-23/07-RSV-Adults-Britton-508.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



For the first time, two RSV vaccines have been greenlit by the FDA to protect&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/05/03/fda-approves-first-ever-rsv-vaccine-after-brutal-2022-season/?sh=3dd0ac5910b2">older Americans</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/08/21/fda-approves-first-rsv-vaccine-for-kids-given-to-pregnant-moms-heres-what-to-know/?sh=75ffd2ab813e">infants</a>&nbsp;against the virus, which are expected to be available this fall, and the agency also approved an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/03/first-rsv-vaccine-for-infants-approved-by-cdc-and-fda-other-top-vaccines-and-their-effectiveness/?sh=7a5031872040">antibody shot</a>&nbsp;for infants and toddlers in August.



New monovalent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/21/new-covid-boosters-expected-this-fall-why-some-doctors-suggest-holding-off-on-getting-your-next-booster-until-then/?sh=18f37e73438b">Covid boosters</a>&nbsp;to protect against variants of the dominant XBB lineage are being developed by Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax at the request of a Food and Drug Administration panel and also are predicted to be available this fall.



As the fall and winter seasons approach, there are concerns another respiratory virus “tripledemic”—caused by a simultaneous rise in flu, Covid and RSV cases, causing hospitals to become overwhelmed—may happen again this year.



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



It’s “more probable that we&#8217;ll have a high viral season” this year with people getting Covid, the flu and RSV around the same time, so getting vaccinated is an important preventative step, Sharon Nachman, the chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, told&nbsp;Forbes.



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



<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Covid</a>&nbsp;hospitalizations in recent weeks ticked up, increasing by almost 19% between August 13 and August 19, while deaths increased almost 18% between July 8 and August 26, as EG.5, or the Eris variant, made up the majority of cases. Though national&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/nrevss/images/trend_images/RSV14Num_Nat.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RSV cases</a>&nbsp;have increased slightly since June—they went from 149 cases in the week of June 17 to 423 cases the week of August 26—cases were over four times higher around this time last year.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Flu cases</a>&nbsp;aren’t witnessing a spike just yet, as flu season is expected to begin in October, but updated vaccines are available for the upcoming season.



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



50,000. That’s how many people in the U.S. died from Covid infection between November 2022 and March 2023,&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_deaths-total" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to the CDC. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">flu</a>&nbsp;accounted for around 58,000 deaths during last year’s tripledemic and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/research/rsv-net/dashboard.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RSV</a>&nbsp;killed 10,000 people—mostly seniors—and caused twice as many hospitalizations than in prepandemic years.



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



A good number of patients last year were admitted into Nachman’s hospital with “more than one virus” at a time. So, she recommends those who are eligible to first get their doctors’ approval and then get all three shots in preparation for the upcoming seasons. Other than approving the co-administration of the RSV shot with other vaccines, the CDC also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/coadministration.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">endorses</a>&nbsp;co-administration of the Covid and flu vaccines. Nachman said there’s a “better immune response” when more than one vaccine is administered at the same time. A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X22015687" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;published in&nbsp;Elsevier&nbsp;found dual vaccination of Covid and the flu saw a reduced risk of infection than in unvaccinated people.



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



Epidemiologist Richard Reithinger told&nbsp;Forbes, “People are a little bit more cautious” about getting the RSV vaccines at the same time as the other two because they were only recently approved by the FDA this year. There is limited evidence on whether the new RSV vaccines negatively interact with the Covid and flu vaccines. However, there were rare instances in a clinical trial where people developed severe side effects after getting the RSV and flu shots at the same time. Two 71-year-old participants developed acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (<a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/acute-disseminated-encephalomyelitis#:~:text=Acute%20disseminated%20encephalomyelitis%20(ADEM)%20is,helps%20with%20electrical%20nerve%20signaling." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ADEM</a>), a neurological disorder that causes widespread swelling in the brain and spinal cord that damages the nerves’ protective coating, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/pdfs/mm7229a4-H.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>&nbsp;by a CDC advisory committee. One of these instances resulted in death. However, researchers aren’t sure if these cases were a result of the vaccines being administered together, or just a coincidence. The study also found that RSV and flu antibodies were slightly lower when administered together, though the “clinical significance is unknown.” If people are unsure about getting all three vaccines at once, it’s okay to “just take the flu vaccine [right now] and then wait for the Covid-19 and RSV” vaccines to be released later this year, according to Reithinger. Although he believes getting all three vaccines at the same time is safe, he ultimately recommends people consult with their doctors on timing.



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/21/new-covid-boosters-expected-this-fall-why-some-doctors-suggest-holding-off-on-getting-your-next-booster-until-then/?sh=18f37e73438b">New Covid Boosters Expected This Fall: Why Some Doctors Suggest Holding Off On Getting Your Next Booster Until Then</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2022/12/20/heres-why-there-is-a-shortage-for-childrens-tylenol-advill-and-motrin-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=3a6e33ce28f4">Here’s Why There Is A Shortage For Children&#8217;s Tylenol, Advil And Motrin—And What To Do About It</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/05/03/fda-approves-first-ever-rsv-vaccine-after-brutal-2022-season/?sh=3dd0ac5910b2">FDA Approves First-Ever RSV Vaccine After Brutal 2022 Season</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/08/21/fda-approves-first-rsv-vaccine-for-kids-given-to-pregnant-moms-heres-what-to-know/?sh=75ffd2ab813e">FDA Approves First RSV Vaccine For Kids—Given To Pregnant Moms—Here’s What To Know</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/03/first-rsv-vaccine-for-infants-approved-by-cdc-and-fda-other-top-vaccines-and-their-effectiveness/?sh=7a5031872040">First RSV Shot For Infants Approved By CDC And FDA: Other Top Shots And Their Effectiveness</a> (Forbes)

Injection of the third dose of the covid 19 vaccine at a Covid-19 vaccination center in Dinan, Brittany

It’s Okay To Get Your Covid, Flu And RSV Shots At The Same Time, Experts Say

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



Officials in New York City this week&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12471305/NYC-Health-Department-tells-New-Yorkers-MASKING-Labor-Day-good-idea-new-Covid-variants-drive-infection-rates.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a>&nbsp;urged residents to wear masks in public as a new strain of Covid-19 continues to spread throughout the country, while some hospitals and schools have also reimplemented mask mandates, though medical experts say masking requirements might not last long, and might not be necessary for the entire population.



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



New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan this week warned the virulent Ba.2.86 variant is “likely to evade immunity that has developed from vaccination or prior infection,” while a city health official told the Daily Mail it would be a “good idea” to mask up in crowded indoor places over the holiday weekend.



In Atlanta, Morris Brown College—a historically Black university—implemented a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/morris-brown-college-implements-two-week-covid-19-mask-mandate-as-cases-climb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">two-week mask mandate</a>&nbsp;for all students and faculty last week as students move back on campus, also re-imposing social distancing amid “reports of positive cases among students.”



California-based healthcare facility Kaiser Permanente&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/kaiser-permanente-reinstates-covid-19-mask-mandate-amid-spike-in-cases-but/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reinstated</a>&nbsp;its mask mandate at its facilities in Santa Rosa, California last week “amid an uptick in patients testing positive,” while in New York, a group of hospitals also imposed mask mandates,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fox4news.com/news/citing-rising-covid-cases-these-us-hospital-systems-have-now-reinstated-mask-mandates" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">including</a>&nbsp;United Health Services, Auburn Community Hospital and University Hospital in Syracuse, New York.



In Santa Monica, California, Hollywood studio&nbsp;Lionsgate&nbsp;also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hollywood-studio-covid-rates-mask-mandates-back-1235571466/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">requested</a>&nbsp;employees wear masks in certain parts of its facilities in response to a rise in cases last month.



A mask mandate is also in effect in&nbsp;<a href="https://sf.gov/information/know-when-masks-are-needed#:~:text=There%20are%20no%20longer%20masking,or%20people%20living%20in%20jails." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">San Francisco</a>&nbsp;for healthcare workers when around patients, as well as for employees at jails.



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



Officials have been torn on mask mandate policies since the start of the pandemic, while studies have found mandates might not be a guaranteed safeguard from community-wide spread. George Washington University Dr. Leana Wen told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/31/health/labor-day-coronavirus-increase-wellness/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CNN</a>&nbsp;this week the decision to mask up also depends on an array of factors, including a person’s age and whether they’re at high risk of contracting the virus—she also said children in schools who are at low risk should not be required to mask up. When asked about Labor Day weekend precautions, Wen added people who didn’t cancel their plans last year probably don’t need to cancel them either, despite cases being on the rise.



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



Vaccine boosters from drugmakers Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/21/new-covid-boosters-expected-this-fall-why-some-doctors-suggest-holding-off-on-getting-your-next-booster-until-then/?sh=6d037a70438b">expected</a>&nbsp;to be ready for use later this month and widely available in October, though they are still pending Food and Drug Administration approval. Those boosters, unlike their predecessors, target newer coronavirus strains, including the Eris strain and other XBB subvariants, adding to Americans’ arsenal to combat Covid, though only 17% of Americans have received the current bivalent booster shot,&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-booster-percent-pop5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to</a>&nbsp;the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



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



15,067. That’s the number of Covid hospitalizations in the U.S. over the week ending August 19, an increase of 18.8% from the week before, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_new-admissions-rate-county" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CDC data</a>. More than 6.27 million people in the U.S. have been hospitalized since the outbreak of the pandemic more than three years ago.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC</h2>



Despite the rise in cases, Republican lawmakers have slammed Covid mask mandates, with Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R)&nbsp;<a href="https://mailchi.mp/5dd152f9c1de/governor-tate-reeves-mask-mandates?e=ae3824fee2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">swearing off</a>&nbsp;potential mask orders, saying, “MIssissippians will not and should not submit to fear again.” In a&nbsp;<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110979968873429026" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">video</a>&nbsp;posted on his social media platform Truth Social, former President Donald Trump argued mask mandates amounts to “fear mongering,” calling lawmakers “Covid tyrants,” and vowing: “We will not shut down our schools, we will not accept your lockdowns, we will not abide by your mask mandates and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandate.”



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/21/new-covid-boosters-expected-this-fall-why-some-doctors-suggest-holding-off-on-getting-your-next-booster-until-then/?sh=6d037a70438b">New Covid Boosters Expected This Fall: Why Some Doctors Suggest Holding Off On Getting Your Next Booster Until Then</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2023/08/25/wastewater-analysis-update-on-ba286-in-the-united-states-its-here-be-careful/?sh=6ab2e5353cc0">Wastewater Analysis Update On BA.2.86 In The United States: It’s Here, Be Careful</a> (Forbes)

Business owner setting up face mask required sign in cafe window

Will Covid Mask Mandates Return? Here’s Where They’re Making A Comeback

According to MedicineNet, at least 10% of the world’s population is affected by chronic pain. Eight out of those 10 patients are affected by depression, and lower back pain is the most common chronic condition, globally. It’s no wonder that pain clinics are popping up everywhere, some of them being called ‘pill mills’, one-stop shops for the medicine that specialists are becoming cautious of prescribing.



“Are they really clinics? My answer is no,” says Dr Marnin Romm, a specialist interdisciplinary pain management clinician and assistant and associate professor based in Boston, United States (US), but born in South Africa.



“A true pain clinic, by definition, is interdisciplinary.”



For Romm, one of the biggest problems with pain management is the commercial side of the business. “It’s ludicrous. Where’s the sustainability of the practitioner?” he asks. “Pain is more complex than just cracking your back, or going to a physiotherapist and feeling okay for a day or two until the pain comes back with a vengeance and you have to go back. That tells me you’re not managing the patient properly, you’re not doing the right treatment and if you keep doing the same thing day in and day out, where’s the ethics?”



Based on his training, clinical experience and work as an academic, Romm believes that pain management is about self-management.



His goal is to help his patients, many of whom have gone down the Dr Google rabbit hole, to stop relying on healthcare providers – including himself.



“It’s for the greater purpose of the good of the patient,” he explains. “I’m not here to fix them. I’m here to guide and navigate in terms of their self-management to different modalities, different tools, and a mixture of different tools, a mix of pharmacology.”



According to Romm, there has been a shift in terms of understanding the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying chronic pain. Instead of understanding the pathophysiology underlying chronic pain, healthcare providers use pharmacological agents and invasive interventions.



<div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:33% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="681" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-681x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-59398 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-681x1024.jpeg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-200x300.jpeg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-768x1154.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-1022x1536.jpeg 1022w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-1363x2048.jpeg 1363w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Dr-Marnin-Romm-scaled.jpeg 1703w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“IN MEDICAL SCHOOL, THE AVERAGE AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT TRAINING DOCTORS OR PHYSIOTHERAPISTS (OR ANYONE INVOLVED IN PAIN) OVER THE SPAN OF SEVEN YEARS IS FOUR HOURS… FOUR HOURS. FOR A PANDEMIC. SO, YOU’RE SAYING YOU CAN LEARN EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PAIN MECHANISM IN FOUR HOURS? THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE.”
<cite>—Dr Marnin Romm</cite></blockquote>
</div></div>



“And it’s not their fault. The reason for this is that in medical school, the average amount of time spent training doctors or physiotherapists (or anyone involved in pain) over the span of seven years is four hours,” he says. “Four hours. For a pandemic. So, you’re saying you can learn everything you need to know about pain mechanism in four hours? That’s impossible.”



Romm, who spent two years in London doing a master’s degree in pain neuroscience, says that the reason healthcare practitioners find it difficult to treat chronic pain is because they’re unable to identify what mechanisms are at play.



“In my assessments, I find out what is going on in the body and then target those mechanisms. Whether the treatment is pharmacological, more invasive, or psychological to reduce stress and anxiety or even exercise-based, but one of the biggest problems in pain management now is that’s still not the case,” adds Romm.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center" id="h-making-money-off-pain">MAKING MONEY OFF PAIN</h4>



There’s no question that opioids are both oversupplied and overprescribed in high-income countries. Patrick Radden Keefe’s 2021 exposé about Purdue Pharma and the opioid epidemic, Empire of Pain, pinpointed the Sackler family’s marketing strategy to generate billions of dollars – which resulted in millions of addicts.



In sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a sharp increase in treatment admission trends for opioids and opioid-related disorders. A BBC investigative documentary called Sweet Sweet Codeine uncovered corruption at major pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria with staff running drug syndicates to meet the high demands of the black market. A few years after banning cough syrup containing codeine, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) reportedly shut down three pharmaceutical firms. Whether used to combat pain or recreationally, the United Nations (UN) put in a report that west, north and central Africa jointly account for 87% of all pharmaceutical opiates seized globally.



Another problem sub-Saharan Africa faces is the use of fake or substandard medications. Drugs are big business which means counterfeits and poorly-made medication benefits the pharmaceutical company that doesn’t know these products are infiltrating their supply chain and the street vendors who knowingly peddle these drugs.



A report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime showed that 267,000 deaths in Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and the Niger) were linked to fake or below-par antimalarial medication. Just under 170,000 deaths have been linked to falsified antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia in children. Sahel countries rely on imports of medical products due to their own pharmaceutical industries being in the earlier stages of development.



It is believed the counterfeit drugs are imported from pharmaceutical exporters (like Belgium, France, China and India), and diverted from the legal supply chain, or manufactured in neighboring countries.



An alternative to opioids is cannabidiol, or CBD. Different to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which also comes from cannabis plants, CBD is non-intoxicating in its pure form. While regulations around the world differ due to the insufficiency of solid evidence to establish its benefit versus the risks, there are many countries that have approved its use for pain. A Forbes Health survey found that 60% of the adults who use CBD in America do so for its pain relief effects. When it comes to cancer pain, Canada has given the thumbs up for CBD and so has the UK to treat the pain that comes with multiple sclerosis stiffness and spasms. In Lesotho, marijuana has become a cash crop as the small landlocked country grows and exports medical cannabis to Europe. In South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, he said that the legal hemp and cannabis sector has the potential to create over 130,000 new jobs in the country – the pharmaceutical market has been estimated at over R100 billion ($53 million) a year. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center" id="h-brain-training-and-tech-to-track-and-treat-pain">BRAIN TRAINING AND TECH TO TRACK AND TREAT PAIN</h3>



There’s more to the business of pain management than drugs, pharmaceuticals and otherwise. Exciting technology such as AI tools to monitor and track pain with big data to non-invasive devices that stimulate nerve fibers are being researched. Telemedicine has also become a big part of chronic pain care as some patients cannot travel to see specialists but still need to consult a doctor.



Another type of technology that’s up-and-coming in the pain space is virtual reality (VR) distraction therapy for pain relief. Dr David Binder, the director of innovation at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, US, has been studying VR for a number of years. He explains that stimuli can distract the brain from receiving pain signals. In a paper for Harvard Health Publishing, he writes: “We already take advantage of this wiring all the time. For example, if you hit your elbow by accident, and it hurts, you rub the elbow and it feels better. You’re tricking the brain by producing the sensory reaction of touching the elbow, which cancels some pain signals.”



Dr Todd Maddox is part of AppliedVR, a company in Texas in the US that makes prescription VR-based therapeutics for chronic pain management. “One of the ways people learn to deal with chronic pain is with breathing mechanisms – this deals with a part of the brain that learns behavior and the goal is to engage those centers in the brain,” he explains.



Maddox explains chronic pain (and where technology fits in) as something that gets worse over time because the brain gets you into a habit that you cannot break out of. Chronic pain is not only about issues with the tissues as muscles, as one example, usually heal within six to 12 weeks, it’s how your brain processes information.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AppliedVR-1024x576.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-59396" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AppliedVR-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AppliedVR-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AppliedVR-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AppliedVR-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AppliedVR-2048x1152.jpeg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">AppliedVR makes prescription VR-based therapeutics for chronic pain management</figcaption></figure></div>


“So much of how we approach chronic pain is cognitive… but the behavior centers in the brain don’t listen to the cognitive centers very well,” says Maddox. This is why talking to someone and telling them what to do with chronic pain doesn’t always work – someone may do the exercises recommended by a physiotherapist but they also might not.



“Here’s what VR does: it broadly engages the brain. It engages your sensory and perception centers – the parts of the brain that say you’re there. It engages cognitive centers, emotional centers, you get motivated, excited and are poised for behavior change…” The research behind this non-pharmacologic form of chronic relief is exciting but it’s something that depends on good content which costs money to create. There’s also the fact that at this point, VR for pain isn’t covered by insurance unless you’re in a nursing home in America and on a CareWell plan. The alternative to what a company like AppliedVR offers is a patient buying their own VR headset and downloading a meditation app like TRIPP which combines tried- and-tested relaxation techniques with binaural audio – it just won’t be supervised by a specialist and the content won’t be specifically designed around pain relief.



Smartphones have given rise to numerous apps to track pain and others that take a more multidisciplinary approach, pairing users with a health coach who can create customized care plans. 



One piece of wearable tech that is making the rounds on social media is Healy, an expensive, palm-sized device which delivers mild electrical currents to the wearer. Robyn Gilbert, a mom of two, discovered Healy from a friend. “I have pain from an autoimmune condition and Healy can mitigate it almost completely,” she says. “It has also improved my sleep, my overall energy levels, and my general sense of emotional wellbeing.” While Gilbert doesn’t feel the current – in fact, it is recommended to keep the stimulation levels low so the user doesn’t feel it – she says she felt a mental shift straight away. “People experience profound changes in many different ways, from the cessation of pain to an overall sense of wellbeing on an emotional and mental level,” she adds. Healy was invented by Marcus Schmieke, founder of the Existential Consciousness Research Institute. It isn’t approved by the FDA but that hasn’t stopped over 300,000 people from buying a device.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">‘IT’S ALL IN YOUR… GUT?’</h3>



Chronic pain may be common but it’s complex and the idea that it’s all ‘in your head’ is something not every doctor agrees on.



Dr Sarette Zecharia is a clinical psychologist who works with alternative forms of pain management, including traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, and is on the board of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology. “Medication is a quick fix but the issue is that it’s foreign to the body and you end up taking more medication to cover up the side effects,” she says. “What I recently heard is that for each decade you’re in, you have to be on two medications and if 



you’re not, it’s mind-boggling. It’s no longer normal to not be on medication.”



<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="20" height="20" src="">Zecharia has seen incredible (and less expensive) results with her pain patients by simply managing diet, using food as fuel. “In modern science, it’s very easy to find the one thing that’s the cause of everything – and medicate. Pain is in every single system, the energetic system, the physical system, the mental system, the emotional system, the spiritual system, and it has to be dealt with on all of those levels,” she adds.



New research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has shown that there is a connection between the gut and chronic pain because the bacteria living



in our gut can influence some neurological diseases – when the microbiome is disrupted, the communication between the gut and brain is disrupted. There is also research in the Nature science journal which validates that an out-of-balance microbiome can lead to chronic inflammatory disease. “If you think about all these psychotropic medications that people are given, it disrupts the gut and the gut is where you make the majority of your neurotransmitters. That’s where your mood comes from and that’s why food is so important,” she adds.



“Food is not important to people whose mood is regulated, but the moment your mood isn’t regulated, you start to realize the importance of food.”



The connection between pain, food and diet culture is complicated and can be attributed to various factors, including societal pressure, media influence and individual experiences. Living a ‘healthy lifestyle’ comes at a cost and the diet industry globally is worth billions ($282.53 billion by 2028 per GlobeNewswire), profiting off those who struggle with their relationship with food and body image.



While Zecharia does believe food is fuel and has seen regenerative diets work for those in pain, she says making money off pain is easy because you can charge people a fortune and “keep giving them stuff that’s just knocking them more off their center line”.



Where does the spend stop and relief begin? For those dealing with pain, chronic or acute, finding a quick fix can take a dark turn but as the field expands and researchers across different disciplines collaborate, there is hope. Says Zecharia: “I’m not saying don’t take psychotropic medication if you need it. The problem is when someone gets medication from a healthcare provider who doesn’t really know what they have. And if it doesn’t work, you keep upping the dosage, messing up your gut biome…”

Closeup female hand neatly placing medicament at domestic first aid kit top view. Storage organization in transparent plastic box drug, pill, syringe, bandage. Fast health help safety emergency supply

The Business Of Pain Management: Expert-Speak From Africa

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



New Covid boosters pending approval will only target the coronavirus’ Eris strain and other XBB subvariants, which make up most cases in the U.S., causing some experts to encourage patients to wait for the new shots instead of getting a current bivalent booster.



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



In June, a Food and Drug Administration panel&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/169591/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recommended</a>&nbsp;Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax formulate their new Covid booster shots to be monovalent and only protect against the XBB.1.5 variant and other XBB sublineages—as opposed to the currently available shots, which were designed to combat earlier coronavirus strains.



The companies are still awaiting FDA approval: The new vaccines are estimated to be ready by late September but probably won’t be widely available until October, CBS News&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-booster-xbb-variants-september-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>.



XBB.1.5 (also known as “Kraken”) is a descendent of the omicron variant and was the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/xbb15-omicron-subvariant-questions-patients-may-have" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">most dominant</a>&nbsp;strain in the U.S. earlier this year, but is now the eighth dominant strain.



The reason the FDA recommended monovalent boosters that protect against one strain is because most of the circulating variants are XBB descendants—as of June, over 95% of the Covid variants in the U.S. were XBB sublineages, the agency said in its report.



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/10/what-we-know-about-eris-covid-variant-eg5-the-dominant-stain-driving-an-uptick-in-cases/?sh=22a519ab1627">EG.5</a>&nbsp;or “Eris” is an XBB subvariant and the dominant strain in the U.S., accounting for 20.6% of all cases in the U.S. between August 6 and 10,&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



The second most common variant, FL.1.5.1, made up 13.3% of cases in the country within that same time period and is also an XBB subvariant.



On Thursday, Moderna&nbsp;<a href="https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2023/Moderna-Clinical-Trial-Data-Confirm-Its-Updated-COVID-19-Vaccine-Generates-Robust-Immune-Response-in-Humans-Against-Widely-Circulating-Variants/default.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;its new Covid vaccine generated a “robust immune response” against Eris and other XBB variants.



A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02228-4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>&nbsp;published in&nbsp;Nature Medicine&nbsp;found that although any available booster offers good protection against Covid, variant-specific shots—like the new monovalent XBB ones awaiting approval—offer about 1.6 times more immunity.



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



676,728,782. That’s how many vaccines have been administered in the U.S. according to CDC&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-booster-percent-pop5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data</a>. However, only 17% of the population has received an updated bivalent booster.



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



Some experts believe that since the new vaccines expected to release this fall are specifically aimed at targeting XBB variants, Americans should hold off on getting updated boosters until then. Paul Sax, the clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/covid-booster-fall.html#:~:text=The%20short%20answer%2C%20according%20to,the%20Omicron%20XBB.1.5%20variant" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;that “waiting makes more sense” for most people looking to get a new vaccine. The current booster is a bivalent shot designed to protect against omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which were once the dominant strains in the U.S. but now make up less than&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">1%</a>&nbsp;of cases combined. A January&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7205e1.htm?s_cid=mm7205e1_w" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;conducted by the CDC found the bivalent vaccines were about 50% effective at protecting against XBB and XBB.1.5 in most adults and about a third effective in those 65 years and older. Raina MacIntyre, head of the biosecurity program at the medical research organization the Kirby Institute,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/four-fifths-of-australian-adults-have-failed-to-get-a-bivalent-booster-here-s-why-that-is-a-problem-20230814-p5dwb5.html#" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;the Sydney Morning Herald&nbsp;the available bivalent boosters “do not provide enough protection against EG.5.1, but the XBB subvariant boosters that are being made by most companies will protect against EG.5.1.” Similarly, University of Michigan infectious disease expert Preeti Malani&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/08/11/1193229029/coronavirus-faq-is-it-wiser-to-get-a-booster-now-or-wait-for-the-new-fall-booste" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told NPR</a>&nbsp;the updated booster shots “will provide a better match to the currently circulating variants,” so most patients are better off waiting for it to be approved.



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



The CDC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/interim-considerations-us.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">still recommends</a>&nbsp;that most people receive at least one bivalent booster shot. The agency&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/09/01/cdc-advisory-panel-recommends-new-covid-booster-shots-targeting-omicron-heres-what-you-need-to-know/?sh=e92dc701da8c">first signed off</a>&nbsp;on Pfizer and Moderna’s updated boosters almost a year ago.



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



A new Covid variant called BA.2.86, or “Pirola,” was&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1692255671687794902" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">labeled</a>&nbsp;as a variant under monitoring by the World Health Organization on Thursday due to the “large number of mutations it carries.” That same day, the CDC&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1692326710262304890?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;it was monitoring the variant as it’s been reported in the U.S., Israel and Denmark. It is the descendant of omicron subvariant BA.2, which was the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-ba2-omicron-subvariant" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dominant strain</a>&nbsp;in the U.S. earlier this year, at one point making up 85% of cases in the country. An&nbsp;<a href="https://slides.com/jbloom/new_2nd_gen_ba2_variant?ftag=YHF4eb9d17#/3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">analysis</a>&nbsp;by Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, found the variant had 36 additional spike protein mutations than XBB.1.5 and 34 more mutations than BA.2. The number of mutations BA.2.86 has in comparison to other variants makes it “comparable to [the] number of mutations in [the] first Omicron strains relative to” the original Covid strain, according to Bloom. Although its prevalence in the U.S. isn’t large enough to appear on the CDC’s variant tracker—it’s being lumped in with BA.2 cases—there might be concern that the new monovalent vaccines won’t protect against it because it’s not an XBB variant. However, in a report shared with&nbsp;Forbes,&nbsp;Pfizer-BioNTech said evidence shows their new monovalent boosters should offer some protection against BA.2.86.



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/08/10/what-we-know-about-eris-covid-variant-eg5-the-dominant-stain-driving-an-uptick-in-cases/?sh=22a519ab1627">What We Know About ‘Eris’ Covid Variant EG.5: The Dominant Strain Driving An Uptick In Cases</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/covid-booster-fall.html#:~:text=The%20short%20answer%2C%20according%20to,the%20Omicron%20XBB.1.5%20variant" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Don’t Get Your Next Covid Booster Quite Yet</a>&nbsp;(New York Times)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/26/covid-vaccines-heres-evidence-they-work-despite-persistent-misinformation-along-with-side-effects-and-common-misconceptions/?sh=2d67186147c3">Covid Vaccines: Here’s Evidence They Work—Despite Persistent Misinformation—Along With Side Effects And Common Misconceptions</a> (Forbes)

A healthcare worker administers the Pfizer-BioNTech (

New Covid Boosters Expected This Fall: Why Some Doctors Suggest Holding Off On Getting Your Next Booster Until Then

Nigeria faces its highest inflation rate in approximately two decades, with the last instance of such soaring inflation recorded back in September 2005, when the rate touched 24.3%.



Nigeria faces its highest inflation rate in approximately two decades, with the last instance of such soaring inflation recorded back in September 2005, when the rate touched 24.3%.



The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that the headline inflation rate in July reached 24.08%, marking a significant increase from the June rate of 22.79%.



Analyzing the data, it becomes apparent that the month of July witnessed a noteworthy 1.29% point rise in the headline inflation rate when compared to the previous month.



Comparing July to the same month the preceding year, the headline inflation rate on a year-on-year basis surged by 4.44% points. This substantial increase in inflation rate, when juxtaposed with July 2022&#8217;s rate of 19.64%, reveals the escalating inflationary pressures that the Nigerian economy currently grapples with.



This recent development raises concerns and calls for a comprehensive understanding of its implications on the nation&#8217;s economy and its citizens&#8217; livelihoods.



According to Iheakanwah Felix Arinzeh, a financial expert and doctor of business administration, the current inflationary surge was not unforeseen.



Arinzeh tells FORBES AFRICA: &#8220;The July inflation rate is not a shock to financial experts. Believe me, the inflationary pressure was expected, considering the tough policy decisions of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration.&#8221;



He attributes the upward inflationary pressure to a combination of factors, including the removal of the fuel subsidy, the depreciation of the Naira, and the global food crisis. He also points out the impact of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has disrupted global supply chains and subsequently led to increased energy and food prices.



However, Arinzeh advocates for further devaluation of the Naira to enhance export competitiveness, especially for non-oil exports, which could bolster foreign exchange earnings and reserves.



While acknowledging the positive potential of recent government policies to revive the economy, Arinzeh highlights the importance of effective communication. He believes that proper sensitization about the implications of policies to the populace would have alleviated concerns and prepared citizens for the outcomes.



&#8220;I suggest the provision of financial assistance to vulnerable households via a social intervention program will go a long way in alleviating the excruciating impact of the high inflationary pressure on essential commodities.



&#8220;I believe we can recover well, but slowly from the current situation,&#8221; says Arinzeh.

Inflation Concept

Nigeria Confronts Highest Inflation Rate In Nearly Two Decades, Eclipsing 2005 Record

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



New research found that organs like the heart, liver and kidneys may still be affected by Covid well after the lungs have healed, affirming previous research that long Covid can affect multiple organs.



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



A new&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abq1533" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;published in&nbsp;Science Translational Medicine&nbsp;on Wednesday reviewed how Covid can negatively affect organs other than the lungs, resulting in long Covid.



Long Covid (also called post-Covid) is lingering symptoms—like loss of smell or taste, chest pain, shortness of breath or brain fog—following recovery from a Covid infection that can last for weeks or even years,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a>&nbsp;to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



The cause of the issue stems from when the virus’ proteins bind to the genes of the mitochondria, the cells’ energy producer, which can negatively impact the body’s organs, leading to dysfunction.



The study also found that even if mitochondrial gene expression recovered in the lungs, the first organ&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/covid-19/about-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">affected</a>&nbsp;by Covid infection, it can still negatively impact other organs, including the heart, liver and kidneys.



Long Covid most commonly affects people who suffered from severe Covid symptoms, people with underlying conditions, the unvaccinated and those who had multisystem inflammatory syndrome—a rare&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mis/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">condition</a>&nbsp;associated with Covid in which body parts like the kidneys and brain become inflamed—during or after Covid, the National Library of Medicine&nbsp;<a href="https://medlineplus.gov/postcovidconditionslongcovid.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>.



A study published in February by the American College of Cardiology&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/02/23/long-covid-linked-to-heart-problems-here-are-the-symptoms--and-whos-at-risk/?sh=43b1469c6890">found</a>&nbsp;having long Covid doubled a person’s risk of developing cardiovascular health issues.



A separate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9955527/#:~:text=The%20results%20of%20these%20investigations,in%20long%2DCOVID%2D19." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;published in the journal of&nbsp;International Urology and Nephrology&nbsp;found that long Covid may play a part in the development of chronic kidney disease and acute kidney injury.



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



“This study provides us with strong evidence that we need to stop looking at Covid-19 as strictly an upper respiratory disease and start viewing it as a systemic disorder that impacts multiple organs,” Douglas C. Wallace, the study’s coauthor, said in a statement. “The continued dysfunction we observed in organs other than the lungs suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction could be causing long-term damage to the internal organs of these patients.”



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



65 million. That’s how many people worldwide are estimated to suffer from long Covid, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;published in&nbsp;Nature&nbsp;in February.



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



A recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(22)00354-6/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>&nbsp;published in the&nbsp;Lancet&nbsp;found that Covid vaccines could potentially reduce the risk of developing long Covid, with data suggesting two doses is more effective at protection than one.&nbsp;<a href="https://medlineplus.gov/postcovidconditionslongcovid.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According</a>&nbsp;to MedlinePlus, a site run by the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine, post-Covid symptoms may present in one of three ways: Patients may develop new health issues months after a Covid infection; they seem to recover from Covid, but their symptoms come back; or they have symptoms that can linger for a span of days to years. Long Covid&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">symptoms</a>&nbsp;can include heart palpitations, chest pain, diarrhea, stomach pain, coughing, shortness of breath or neurologic symptoms—like brain fog, headaches or sleep problems. There is not a certain test for long Covid. To diagnose it, a physician will ask about a patient&#8217;s medical history, conduct a physical exam and they may order blood work and imaging tests.



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



New&nbsp;<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.29.23292056v1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">research</a>&nbsp;published in&nbsp;medRxiv&nbsp;suggests that genetics may play a role in who develops long Covid. The researchers looked at data from 24 different studies with almost 6,500 participants and found that patients with long Covid were more likely to share DNA around a gene called FOXP4, which is a gene that may be involved in immune responses in the air sacs of the lungs. However, just because a patient has the FOXP4 gene doesn’t guarantee they will develop long Covid. The gene has previously been&nbsp;<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25994569/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">found</a>&nbsp;to play a role in tumor growth in lung cancer.



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/02/23/long-covid-linked-to-heart-problems-here-are-the-symptoms--and-whos-at-risk/?sh=43b1469c6890">Long Covid Linked To Heart Problems: Here Are The Symptoms – And Who’s At Risk</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/06/15/more-people-got-diabetes-during-the-covid-pandemic-heres-why/?sh=65ea758f31d3">More People Got Diabetes During The Covid Pandemic—Here’s Why</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/05/10/covids-no-longer-a-public-health-emergency-heres-how-that-may-affect-you/?sh=33db5d4d20e3">Covid’s No Longer A Public Health Emergency: Here’s How That May Affect You</a> (Forbes)

TUNISIA-HEALTH-VIRUS-TOURISM-HOSPITAL

Long Covid May Affect Organs Like The Heart And Kidneys After Lungs Recover, New Research Says

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



Moderna and BioNTech shares both cratered to their lowest price in years Monday as the companies behind the most widely-circulated mRNA Covid-19 vaccines grapple with investor disappointment with crashing revenues.



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



BioNTech and Moderna’s stocks fell 8% and 6%, respectively, a decline spurred by BioNTech’s earnings report revealing the German firm’s sales fell 95% year-over-year last quarter.



Moderna’s fresh decline came after it reported a 93% annual decline in quarterly revenues in its own earnings release Thursday.



Moderna’s $101.20 close Monday was its lowest since November 2020, while BioNTech’s $98.50 close was its lowest since March 2021.



BioNTech, which developed a Covid vaccine with Pfizer, said Monday it expects to generate $5.5 billion in Covid vaccine sales this year, a 70% decline from 2022, while Moderna’s $6 billion to $8 billion in forecasted Covid jab sales is similarly about two-thirds below its $18 billion of revenue in the unit last year.



The stock crashes moved against broader market gains, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 408-point, or 1.2%, rally its strongest since June 2.



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



Shares of Moderna are down 78% from their September 2021 high of $456, making the Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company the worst-performing stock listed on the S&amp;P 500 during the period, according to FactSet data. BioNTech, which isn’t listed on the S&amp;P, is also down 78% from its 2021 peak share price. Moderna and Pfizer are among the worst-performing stocks listed on the S&amp;P this year as the rival firms both grappled with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/01/31/pfizer-expects-covid-vaccine-and-pill-revenues-will-fall-60-in-2023/?sh=182d46027bee">declining demand</a>&nbsp;for Covid prevention and treatment.



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



About $340 billion. That’s how much market capitalization BioNTech (down $85 billion) and Moderna (down $157 billion) have lost over the last two years.



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



Until BioNTech gets “the COVID guidance monkey off its back, this will remain purgatory for most investors,” Jefferies analysts led by Akash Tewari wrote in a Monday note to clients.



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/07/03/worst-stocks-of-2023s-first-half-battered-banks-and-vaccine-makers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MORE FROM FORBESWorst Stocks Of 2023&#8217;s First Half: Battered Banks And Vaccine MakersBy Derek Saul</a>

In this photo illustration the medical syringe is seen with

Covid Vaccine Makers’ Stocks Crash To Multiyear Lows Monday As Sales Keep Sliding

The recent coup in Niger has escalated tensions in West Africa as the junta defies ECOWAS&#8217;s deadline for reinstating President Mohamed Bazoum.



Niger has closed its airspace following the expiration of a deadline imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for the reinstatement of elected President Mohamed Bazoum. This comes after Bazoum was ousted in a coup by a military junta, marking a significant crisis in West Africa&#8217;s diplomatic landscape.



ECOWAS, a regional political and economic union of fifteen West African countries, has been pushing for democratic stability in the region, and military action to reinstate the president is now a possibility. The situation has attracted international attention, with the coup igniting tensions in an already fragile part of the continent.



The coup, which was declared last month by the head of the Presidential Guard, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, blamed a lack of economic growth and continuing insecurity for the ousting of Bazoum. However, the country has long seen divisions between the democratic political sphere and the military, with the last coup attempt being mere days before Bazoum’s inauguration in 2021.



Niger under Bazoum has served as a critical strongpoint for the European Union in an attempt to block illegal migration from Africa, and an important ally from which France has based its military operations on the continent after relations with Malian authorities soured last year. The United States also considers Niger an ally, and has supported the country with foreign aid, some of which has been paused in light of the coup.



African heads of state as well as European and American bodies have condemned the coup, and ECOWAS’ stated deadline for Bazoum’s reinstatement reflected the body’s hard stance against his deposition.



However, the closure of Nigerien airspace yesterday indicates that the junta will not comply with demands, increasing tensions, as it remains to be seen whether this non-compliance will result in a military invention by ECOWAS in the already unstable region.

Demonstration of coup supporters in Niger

Niger Airspace Closure Signals Deepening Crisis As ECOWAS Deadline Passes

Among the key topics to be addressed at the BRICS Summit in August are the expansion of the bloc, a common currency within it, and ensuring food and energy security.



After three years of virtual summits, South Africa is hosting in person the 15th BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24.



An acronym for the world economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and since 2010, South Africa, BRICS, according to Trevor Bester, CEO of BRICS Global Television Network (expected to launch on August 20), “is a continuation of a vision established in 2010 as a platform to trade with a common currency, decreasing reliance on the dollar as the global reserve currency. The fastest-growing economies joined together to become the dominant global economies by 2050”.



The summit comes at a vital time in the alliance’s history as more than 20 countries have expressed interest in joining. None is more certain than Saudi Arabia, largely because of its interest in funding the BRICS Bank.



This will have massive positive implications for the emerging economies in the bloc and their development.



Iran is also likely to be accepted. It has embraced the global south and expressed its desire to eliminate Western dominance, one of the goals of BRICS, and will not hesitate to embrace and assist in de-dollarization efforts.



The United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Argentina and Egypt all stand a chance of also being accepted and bring with them varying benefits.



Among the key topics to be addressed at the summit are the expansion of BRICS, a common currency within the bloc and ensuring food and energy security.



“BRICS already accounts for 31.5% of global GDP and by 2030 will account for 50%. China is the fastest-growing economy at the moment but India is likely to take over,” says Bester.



“BRICS countries’ combined population is at 3.24 billion, which represents almost half the world’s population and have a combined GDP of $26.03 trillion. This, combined with the gradual decrease of unemployment in the BRICS countries from 4.8% in 2022 to 4.7% in 2023, illustrates the progressive nature of the concerned economies.”



The New Development Bank, formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank, established in 2014, offers member countries a platform to trade with each other in either local currency or a new currency backed by gold.



“The benefits of this bank, amongst others, is to finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and countries,” says Redge Nkosi, Executive Director and Head of Research at Firstsource Money and Monetary Reform, to FORBES AFRICA.



“BRICS members will be able to achieve a level of self-sufficiency in international trade.”



The move could make it easier for economies to take on the US dollar and challenge its global reserve status.



In the last 18 months, BRICS nations have increased their gold buying expenditure and are stockpiling the precious metal.



The dollar is now a risky asset as it comes with the dangers of debt. If the debt ceiling crisis worsens, it could cause a domino effect of financial problems in developing countries. Therefore, a handful of countries in Asia,



Africa, Latin America, and Europe are looking to stay away from the dollar for global settlements.



For Africa, this is an opportunity. In recent years, BRICS has expanded its involvement on the continent. BRICS members are now Africa’s largest trading partners and significant investors, especially in the manufacturing and service sectors.



Pursued properly, BRICS participation can position South Africa and other African countries as being among the world’s fastest-growing economies.



Pravin Maharaj, Chairman of Trade BRICS, believes that by South Africa hosting the summit, “the time for Africa has arrived, it has moved from vision to reality”.



“The summit will focus on bringing about less poverty, less inequality and more development. Youth will have more to look forward to as education is also a key focus area at the summit,” he says to FORBES AFRICA.

BRICS summit

‘Less Inequality And More Development’: What To Expect At The BRICS Summit

A week before the 2023 French Open, South African tennis ace and paralympian Kgothatso Montjane said on radio that she wanted to top her achievements with a Grand Slam win “to validate everything”.



“And then I went out to win the Grand Slam, it was just unbelievable!” she says now, back in South Africa at the end of June as a Roland Garros women&#8217;s wheelchair doubles champion with Yui Kamiji from Japan as the two clinched an impressive 6-2, 6-3 victory over Diede de Groot and Maria Moreno.



Speaking to FORBES AFRICA soon after her win, she reminisces that this was not the career she had originally envisioned for herself.



“I picked up a racket at the age of 19 for the first time,” says the 37-year-old. “At school, I was playing quite a lot of sport. So I think that&#8217;s the reason why [with] tennis, they came directly to me. They were like ‘you’ve got to go try this’. So I was somehow forced into it.”



The Limpopo-born tennis player remembers going to university not sure about wanting to continue the sport.



“At school, I felt like I was good at table tennis. So for me, that&#8217;s what I was looking forward to playing when I got to university, but it wasn&#8217;t there. Even wheelchair basketball, I think I would have settled for, but tennis, it was foreign to me. I have never seen it anywhere. And I just never understood this whole thing of them wanting me to play the sport.”



A few years later, she was approached to play professionally, which came with the opportunity to travel the world. At first, it seemed an attractive proposition but it was not without its challenges, especially when she had to start securing her own sponsorships.



“It was glamorous at the beginning, because there was someone taking care of everything,” Montjane explains. “We didn&#8217;t have to worry, we just had to pack our bags and go to the airport. I didn&#8217;t know the financial implications that were involved, the admin and the entering of tournaments.”



This meant that she had to learn to be business-savvy. So the young sportswoman set off to learn to draft proposals and approach sponsors across the board.



All of this is what led to Montjane’s illustrious career including being named ‘South Africa&#8217;s disabled sportswoman of the year’ three times (2005, 2011 and 2015), holding 29 singles titles and winning wheelchair tennis tournaments such as the Belgian Open and Swiss Open.



Montjane also made history as the first South African woman to win at Roland Garros since Tanya Harford’s and Rosalyn Fairbank&#8217;s victory in 1981.



“I still can&#8217;t believe it happened. When someone says ‘Grand Slam champion’, I am like ‘Nah, you are not talking to me’. It&#8217;s still to sink in,” she says. “I just want people to know that disability doesn&#8217;t mean inability. It&#8217;s just a condition that limits you in a certain way… At the end of the day, we people with disabilities – we are human, we are capable, we are talented.”

IMG-2912

‘Disability Does Not Mean Inability’: South Africa’s Wheelchair Tennis Champ

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



The U.S. women’s national team game against the Netherlands was last week’s most-watched show on television as it broke records for the highest-ever English language viewership of a group stage match in women’s FIFA World Cup history.



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



The match, which saw the two teams draw 1-1, was watched by 6.4 million people last Wednesday, Nielsen data shows, and is the second U.S. game from this year’s World Cup to score record viewership.



The Netherlands match was the most-watched ever in a group stage and the July 21 game, a 3-1 win over Vietnam, was watched by 5.3 million people, making it the third most-viewed group stage game in Women&#8217;s World Cup history behind the 2019 U.S. game against Chile in second place.



The game against the Netherlands was the most-watched broadcast show last week by almost 1 million viewers—CBS&#8217;s&nbsp;60 Minutes&nbsp;saw 5.6 million viewers in second place, followed by Tuesday&#8217;s episode of&nbsp;America&#8217;s Got Talent&nbsp;with 5.8 million watchers and&nbsp;Celebrity Family Feud, which drew 3.6 million.



Viewership numbers for the final group-stage match for the U.S., a game played against Portugal Monday, have not been released but likely won’t hold up to the others because of timing—the Portugal game aired at 3 a.m. ET as opposed to 11 p.m. and 9 p.m. for the Vietnamese and Netherlands matchups, respectively.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



The next game. The 0-0 tie against Portugal allowed the U.S. team to finish second in Group E and narrowly advance. The team will play its first World Cup knockout stage game at 5 a.m. Sunday against Sweden. The World Cup is now down to its last 16 teams.



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



The U.S. team has won the FIFA Women&#8217;s World Cup four times—more than any other country. The Americans are the current champions after winning the 2019 tournament in France and they also won the title in 2015 in a game that became the second most-watched soccer game in American history with 26.9 million viewers,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/thegoalkeeper/most-watched-soccer-games-united-states-world-cup-copa-america.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;Philadelphia Inquirer.&nbsp;No country has ever won three consecutive men&#8217;s or women&#8217;s World Cups and the feat is rare at the professional level in any sport. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2022/06/15/major-sports-teams-three-peat-last-50-years/7635754001/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">last American team</a>&nbsp;to do it was the Los Angeles Lakers, which won the NBA Championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Other teams include the Chicago Bulls from 1996 to 1998, New York Yankees from 1998 to 2000 and the WNBA&#8217;s Houston Comets, which won four championships from 1997 to 2000.



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



Fox News continued its domination in the cable sphere last week, Nielsen data shows, with nine of the 10 most-watched cable shows. All five episodes of the round-table talk show&nbsp;The Five&nbsp;were in the top 10, with Wednesday&#8217;s airing the most watched at 3.1 million viewers. MSNBC&#8217;s&nbsp;Rachel Maddow Show&nbsp;was the only non-Fox show to break in—2.5 million people watched the Monday episode, ranking it ninth place. Fox News saw a 26% jump in ratings&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/07/26/fox-news-ratings-surge-26-amid-post-tucker-carlson-shakeup-and-trump-interview/?sh=4e84af1d180e">two weeks ago</a>&nbsp;when it premiered its reshuffled lineup with Jesse Watters in the 8 p.m. spot once held by Tucker Carlson, and last week’s numbers show viewership has climbed even higher. Fox News averaged 1.84 million primetime viewers for the week of July 24, up from 1.81 million in the previous week.



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/07/27/womens-world-cup-hits-record-tv-viewership-for-group-stage/?sh=6a248029358e">Women’s World Cup Hits Record TV Viewership For Group Stage</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/07/26/fox-news-ratings-surge-26-amid-post-tucker-carlson-shakeup-and-trump-interview/?sh=1033bef0180e">Fox News Ratings Surge 26% Amid Post-Tucker Carlson Shakeup—And Trump Interview</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2023/07/21/womens-world-cup-highest-paid-alex-morgan-megan-rapinoe/?sh=ceabde45acdd">The Highest-Paid Players At The 2023 Women’s World Cup</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2023/07/21/money-equity-and-taxes-make-news-early-at-the-2023-womens-world-cup/?sh=54fbd7196386">Money, Equity And Taxes Make News Early At The 2023 Women’s World Cup&nbsp;</a>(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/manasipathak-1/2023/07/18/netflix-will-follow-united-states-at-womens-world-cup/?sh=c4b66c12524c">Netflix Will Follow United States At Women’s World Cup</a> (Forbes)

South Africa v Italy: Group G – FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023

The Women’s World Cup Was TV’s Most-Watched Show Amid Record-Breaking Viewership

“It’s not just a knowledge-sharing initiative,” Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) CEO, Cas Coovadia, tells FORBES AFRICA of its collaboration with government. This is following a pledge by CEOs from over 115 of the country’s leading corporations to contribute to addressing challenges around energy, logistics, crime and corruption.



With CEOs from over 115 of South Africa’s leading companies signing a pledge recently, stating their firm belief in the potential of the country and their aim to achieve sustainable, inclusive economic growth, there is new hope from Big Business and a message – that it’s keen to work with government and build the country.



The companies span a range of sectors and include the likes of Anglo American, Sasol, SAB, RCL Foods, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Arcelor Mittal, PPC, Mondi, Hollard, Allan Gray, Deloitte, KPMG, Naspers, EOH, Growthpoint, Fidelity, and more.



The reported market cap of the 115+ entities exceed R11 trillion ($598 billion) and they together employ more than 1.2 million people.



“Through strategic partnerships and focused interventions, we have the power to make a significant and positive impact on our nation, creating hope for all South Africans. We are resolutely committed to being a force for good,” the pledge concludes.



Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) has said, in a statement on this pledge, that through the Business for South Africa (B4SA) structure, it is collaborating with government to implement key interventions in energy, logistics and transport, and crime and corruption.



BUSA CEO Cas Coovadia says following their dialogue with President Cyril Ramaphosa, which resumed earlier this year, they are collectively working on a structure to tackle these issues.



“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel in trying to determine what the problems are. We’re actually giving three pages on each of these – so these are the interventions you need to make and if you make those interventions, this will be the impact on investment, growth and jobs.



“We briefed a broad range of CEOs on this and what we suggested is that if they can sign a pledge along the lines of the one you’ve seen, which basically backs up this work we are doing.”



He adds that this move reinforces the message that business is keen on working with government.



“We will put in the resources and capacity to make all of this happen, provided we have a structured relationship with government, with clear outcomes, with clear timeframes and their people are sitting with us in a real partnership – that’s what the pledge is all about.”



President Ramaphosa had a follow-up meeting with business leaders on Tuesday, continuing their collaborative efforts.



South Africa’s energy challenges have been well-documented. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) country focus, published in June, the economy grew by 0.4% between January and March this year, with power cuts, volatile commodity prices and a challenging external environment the main contributions to the weak growth.



The fund adds that it projects that, by year-end, real GDP growth will fall sharply from last year.



“The country has faced rolling blackouts after years of mismanagement of the state-owned utility, Eskom, prompting the authorities to ease the registration process and licensing requirements for energy production to encourage private sector investment,” cites the report.



“Additional far-reaching reforms are needed to achieve job-rich, inclusive, and greener growth. These include improving the country’s energy and logistical constraints, reducing barriers to private sector investment, addressing structural rigidities in the labor market, and tackling crime and corruption.”



Encouragingly, Coovadia says that energy is actually where government and business have made the most progress.



“[The President] put together a National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM) in his office. He then realized he doesn’t have the expertise to implement the plan and approached us. We discussed this – we were happy with the plan on the basis that there were some good people at NECOM under very difficult circumstances, trying to actively get the plan implemented,” he says.



This is where the Resource Mobilization Fund (RMF) came in. The Presidency reported in March that the fund had raised R100 million ($5.4 million) from businesses and philanthropies.



“We put together a light touch, not for profit, called the Resource Mobilization Fund to do two things – raise the money and procure the expertise. We raised half the money from our global foundation, the rest from South African business. We put together a procurement team made up of procurement people from five corporates. On the basis of the expertise NECOM needed, we went through an open RFP (request for proposal) process.



“As of three weeks ago, expertise have been donated to NECOM and they started working with NECOM to implement the plan as a matter of urgency. We’ve put engineers into four power stations to increase the energy factor in those power stations so we’re working well with them on energy. There’s good progress.”



While South Africa’s challenges in energy do clearly impact the economy, Coovadia says progress in logistics is equally, if not more, crucial.



“Logistics is probably a bigger problem than energy in the sense that the opportunity costs on our ports degrading, our rail system degrading, as a result of goods being transferred by road – our road system degrading – the cost to business, of that, are severe,” he says.



“We believe if we get that right, we will have a significant impact on instilling confidence in the country, on investors coming in and on actually reducing the cost of doing business, and the cost of production and businesses operating efficiently. To us, that’s a big issue.”



Coovadia reiterates that the massive problem with crime and corruption is that it has a direct impact on business, the confidence of investors and in the lives of the country’s people. But the focus on these three areas does not mean they are the only areas of concern.



“Let’s get to a stage where we can show results on these and then we can look at other stuff.”



He also mentions the importance of impacting more than just the country’s major companies.



“One of the pieces of work we’ve done in addition to this is looking at what are the factors that can lead to employment, looking at the informal sector, the SME sector and so on. As part of this, we would want to see one, from a regulatory point of view, what needs to be done, but secondly, how does bigger business relate to SMEs and the informal sector,” says Coovadia.



“Firstly, in the SME sector, to try and get SMEs in the value chains, to support SMEs, to look at why so many SMEs are failing and what we can do about that. From an informal trading point of view – to see what light touch regulation [and] management that can actually get those informal traders into more impactful situations, and how points and supermarkets in townships can work with informal traders. As soon as we’re ready to release that, we will do so.”



Coovadia concludes that the business sector is going into this collaboration with their eyes open and will assess and review their stance in the next four or five months if there’s no traction or progress being made.

Sandton nightly cityscape large panoramic view

New Hope From Big Business In South Africa And A Message – That It’s Keen To Build The Country

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



Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said during an investor call Tuesday the Food and Drug Administration could authorize the company’s new Covid-19 booster shot by the end of the month—moving closer to a system of regular flu-like vaccinations that keep up with the coronavirus as it evolves and as people’s immunity wanes.



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



In June, Pfizer, along with its German partner BioNTech,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pfizer.com/news/announcements/pfizer-and-biontech-submit-applications-us-fda-omicron-xbb15-adapted-monovalent" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">asked the FDA</a>&nbsp;to approve a new version of its Covid-19 vaccine booster designed to protect against XBB.1.5, a coronavirus subvariant that emerged in late 2022.



XBB.1.5 is no longer the dominant strain, having been usurped by XBB.1.6, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but experts say the two are similar enough that a new booster should protect against both (XBB.1.5 represented 12.3% of all new cases in late July while XBB.1.6 represented 14.8%, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-summary" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CDC data</a>).



Bourla said he and his colleagues expect “a new Covid wave to start in the U.S. this fall” and want the new version of the vaccine to be available prior to that.



However, with only 17% of the U.S. population having received a fall 2022 booster shot that was updated for the Omicron variant, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-booster-percent-pop5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the CDC</a>, it’s unclear how many Americans will choose to adopt the latest booster.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



The CDC will ultimately recommend who should receive the updated boosters, but that announcement likely won’t come until after the FDA authorizes them. The most recent boosters released in fall 2022 were eventually recommended by the CDC for everyone above the age of six.



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



The first Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, authorized by the FDA in fall 2021, were meant to help replenish waning immunity to the virus. However, after the coronavirus’ Omicron variant launched a new vicious wave of the pandemic last year, drugmakers released a modified “bivalent” booster shot in fall 2022 that was designed to protect against both the original virus strain as well as Omicron, which was more resistant to the original vaccines. This new booster is attempting to do what that bivalent booster did with Omicron, but with an update for the XBB strains. The news comes as 8,035 people were hospitalized for Covid-19 in the week ended July 22, according to the most recent&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_new-admissions-rate-county" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CDC data</a>&nbsp;available. That’s a 12.1% increase over the week before, but a far cry from the peak in January 2022, when there were around 150,000 hospitalizations a week.



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



This new booster falls in line with doctors’ long held predictions that the Covid-19 vaccines would likely need to become similar to the influenza vaccine, where a new iteration is released annually to update the formulation to new strains of the virus. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the leader of the federal government’s response to the pandemic, said at a White House briefing in September 2022: “We likely are moving towards a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual updated Covid-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population.”



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



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/07/31/nih-opens-clinical-trials-for-long-covid-treatment/?sh=27c710007331">NIH Opens Clinical Trials For Long Covid Treatment</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/06/01/fda-approves-pfizers-rsv-vaccine-for-older-adults-it-could-be-available-this-fall/?sh=742adb6435ca">FDA Approves Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine For Older Adults—It Could Be Available This Fall</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/05/18/rsv-vaccine-fda-advisors-recommend-pfizer-shot-to-protect-infants-from-infection-heres-what-to-know/?sh=55dc2bf33859">RSV Vaccine: FDA Advisors Recommend Pfizer Shot To Protect Infants From Infection—Here’s What To Know</a> (Forbes)

Coronavirus Vaccination In Gaza, Palestine

Pfizer Expects Signoff For New Covid Boosters As Soon As This Month. Here’s What To Know—And Why They’re Needed

Basketball lovers consider Giannis Antetokounmpo&#8217;s visit to Nigeria significant, as it reflects a growing interest in Nigerian basketball and the recognition of the country&#8217;s athletes on a global stage.



Greek-Nigerian basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo (originally Adetokunbo), a two-time National Basketball Association (NBA) Most Valuable Player, fulfilled a long-awaited dream as he arrived in Lagos last week, for the first time, a few months after the launch of the Poverty Is No Joke initiative, a concept introduced by the Charles Antetokounmpo Family Foundation.



Antetokounmpo has always embraced his Nigerian heritage. The initiative, he has previously highlighted, would be focused on three places: Milwaukee, where he plays, currently; Greece, his birthplace; and Nigeria – the country his parents migrated from.



In 2013, after acquiring Greek citizenship, Antetokounmpo’s official surname changed to Αντετοκούνμπο, the Greek transcription of Adetokunbo. This was later transliterated letter-for-letter and officially spelled as Antetokounmpo on his Greek passport. Due to the complexity of his original surname, many NBA fans found it difficult to pronounce, leading him to be affectionately referred to as the ‘Greek Freak’.



Antetokounmpo shared his excitement on social media on his arrival in Nigeria. He tweeted a picture of himself and his mother, Veronica, in Lagos on Saturday night, saying, “Finally made it to Nigeria with Mama the Mama.”



His first stop was at the Youth Alive Basketball Championship held on Friday at Rowe Park in Yaba, a suburb on the mainland of Lagos.



The event host, Abayomi Ajowele, tweeted: “When I announced to the kids that @Giannis_An34 would be at Rowe Park and begged them to wait after the event for another 20 minutes, they thought I was mad and hallucinating. The rest, they say, is history.”



According to Shololo Shuaib, a sports marketing agent, Antetokounmpo played with the under-12 category and spent time talking to them.



Additionally, a Twitter handle dedicated to basketball activities in Nigeria, @BballNaija, noted that Antetokounmpo was in the country briefly “to shoot a documentary and it’s connected to the book about him – The Improbable Rise of an NBA Champion. He leaves tonight (Saturday).”



Mirin Fader&#8217;s book tells the remarkable story of Antetokounmpo&#8217;s journey from poverty in Athens, Greece, to superstardom in America with the Milwaukee Bucks. It portrays him as one of the most transcendent players in history, ultimately becoming an NBA Champion.



The development comes just a few months after the launch of the Poverty Is No Joke initiative. His ties to Nigeria run deep, with both of his parents hailing from the country.



He proudly revealed their names for the first time in an interview with The Undefeated in 2019. Despite being born in Athens, he emphasized that his home life was steeped in Nigerian culture, with values centered on discipline, respect for elders, and strong moral principles.



His journey to Africa is not entirely new; he had previously represented Team Africa in the first Africa Game in Johannesburg in 2015, scoring a game-high of 22 points. According to his interview with The Undefeated in 2019, he also obtained his Nigerian passport that same year, cementing his connection to his roots.



Basketball lovers consider Antetokounmpo&#8217;s visit to Nigeria significant, as it reflects a growing interest in Nigerian basketball and the recognition of the country&#8217;s talented athletes on a global stage.



Dayo Mustapha, a basketball enthusiast, praises Antetokounmpo&#8217;s gesture, seeing it as a positive development for Nigerian basketball.



Mustapha tells FORBES AFRICA: “With a surge in interest and investment in the sport, Nigeria is becoming a priority destination for talented athletes to showcase their skills.



“Antetokounmpo&#8217;s presence in Nigeria marks a momentous occasion for Nigerian basketball, highlighting the potential for growth and inspiring young players to pursue their dreams on and off the court.”



Oluwaseyi Giwa, a devoted fan of Antetokounmpo, shares with FORBES AFRICA: “Giannis, as a person, has shown a deep love for Nigerians and a strong desire to give back to the children in Nigeria through basketball, which I find truly inspiring.



“I have watched documentaries, short films, and full cinematic movies about his life story; through these, you can witness how this young man never forgot his roots, background, real surname, and ancestors. He proudly carries the emblem of his heritage, despite not being born here, all thanks to his parents who instilled in him and his siblings the worth and richness of their culture. I believe many of us resonate with him as he grew up,” says Giwa.

At Rowe Park in Yaba, Nigeria, Photo credit @BballNaija

NBA Superstar ‘The Greek Freak’ Embraces Nigerian Heritage With Debut Trip

The June/July 2023 issue of FORBES AFRICA was my favorite reading for the month as it touched on a subject close to my heart – agriculture. In a conversation with Dr Akinwumi Adesina (President, African Development Bank) a few years ago, he talked about the importance of agriculture (one of his ‘High 5’ pillars is ‘Feed Africa’) and the need for the youth in Africa to engage in the sector. His famous words to me at the time were “we need to make agriculture sexy again so that the younger generation is motivated to enter this sector that can transform lives”. 



His words were inspired not only by the historic impor- tance but also by the opportunities being created by innovations in the sector. It was therefore hearten- ing to read stories of young ‘agripreneurs’ from all over Africa who are, through agritech, trying to bring innovation into the agricultural ecosystem and create more efficient supply chains from seed to soil to market.



Agriculture in Africa, as in a number of Asian economies, is the most important sector contributing an average of 20% to 24% of the total Gross Domestic Product of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In absolute terms, there are about 33 million smallholder farms of which an estimated 35,000 commercial farm units are in South Africa; 5,000 to 7,000 of these farms produce 80% of the agricultural output in South Africa.



Farmers living in these smallholder farms (who largely use their hands for cultivation) contribute 70% of the food supply on the continent. Corre- spondingly, 65%-70% of Africans rely on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood.



Considering that Africa has most (about 60%) of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land, the continent imports between $35 billion to $45 billion of food/agricultural products each year, since only about 10% of the available land is being cultivated. This stems from poor infrastructure development and therefore limited access to a large part of the 700 million hectares to 800 million hectares that can be cultivated. Other than land, other areas that need machinery, technology, infrastructure development and distribu- tion. 



The most critical of all factors is easy access to low-cost finance and while financial institutions talk a good talk, very few provide reasonably-priced working capital to farmers. To make the continent self-suffi- cient, there is a need to invest almost $75 billion to $80 billion annually in the agricultural sector in Africa and there needs to be a concerted effort by policymaker to ensure that the banking sector comes to the party failing which, the continent, despite all its natural ad- vantages, will be unable to feed its growing population and alleviate poverty. 



An important factor today, not just in agriculture, but across all industries, is educa- tion and relevant literacy across all demographics.



A few years after the launch of CNBC Africa in 2007, I started a thought leadership discussion on the Future of Education in SSA. Over the years, we have identified areas including redefining the purpose of education to make it more relevant to today’s times. Each year, we have had some brilliant minds from around the world join the deliberations to bring forth different global perspectives. 



At the 2023 virtual sum- mit in July, we decided to unpack some of the current challenges, particularly relating to youth unemployment in Africa that has reached alarming levels. In many countries, more than 40% of fresh graduates do not find stable employment, even a year after finish- ing university. Part of the problem is the historic gap between the jobs being created and the number of students graduating from university. This problem, however, is being compounded by the transformation of existing jobs that require new skillsets, which ap- plicants do not have; nor can these be secured through unstructured staff development programs.



Owing to a very difficult history of colonization, the African education landscape is unique in its evolution reasonably-priced internet. SSA today has only 22% internet access compared to a global average of 63%. Furthermore, broadband access in Africa comes at a very high cost. In terms of afford- able pricing, India has the fifth lowest internet data rates in the world, with the cost of data at about 17 US cents per gigabyte. In comparison, South Africa at $2 per gigabyte is almost 12 times higher in price than India. The other important nuance is the low Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 9.4% in Africa.



We live in a world today where artificial intel- ligence (AI) is responding to queries predicated on existing datasets. The debates are ongoing about the role of AI in all aspects of the future. No one can predict this accurately but it’s safe to say that if you can imagine something, coding, creativity and AI will find a solution. 



It sounds surreal, but it is the best time to be alive, as we have witnessed more possibili- ties in the last few years than we have seen in decades of analog. ChatGPT, the new kid on the block, has challenged the education arena with so many dimensions and has created a fear of redundancies and whether machines will take over most jobs. 



While these are genuine, short-term apprehensions, we do know that job displacements from what computers and machines can do are different from functions performed by human beings relating to creativ- ity, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and problem-solving. As some jobs are being taken over by automation, more are being created that will continue to replace the older ones in the form of supervision of automated systems, programming, and maintenance. 



As an exam- ple, during the internet era, new jobs relating to web design and development, digital marketing and cyber security, to name a few, were created. Now, with blockchain, AI and virtual reality, the world is opening up to workplace transformation, where coding, computer sciences and creativity will play an important role in creating job replacements in areas that we are yet to discover.



Another important dimension that was discussed during the Future of Education Summit was the impor- tant and underlying role of the economics of transfor- mation. Conservatively, unemployment costs for coun- tries run into billions of dollars of wasted resources each year. Global GDP could go up by trillions of dollars if unemployment is curtailed. On the other hand, the cost of reskilling is estimated to be between $10,000-$20,000 per new graduate joining a company, which is cumu- latively running into billions of dollars for employers. What this points to is that these costs to business can be optimized if there is closer collaboration and conversations between governments, academic institu- tions, and the corporate world.



In practical terms, the most transformative out- comes are going to come from industry where large employers will define their needs to educational in- stitutions. Colleges and universities need to adapt to these requirements by designing bespoke curriculum that will increasingly become industry-certified. The day is not far when human resources (HR) departments in organizations will be driven by professors who will articulate the needs of the establishment and act as an interface with academia.



The role of humanities will continue to increase critical thinking and creativity into sciences making up for the inherent deficiencies in machines. This blend of the two worlds of Arts and Sciences, which have always been historically segmented into silos, will provide the solutions in the future world of AI. In this context, one of the most interesting discussions was on the concept of “a factory within a university” or “a university within a factory”. 



The possibilities are endless, and the deliberations were animated and intense, but the trend line was clear that for a progressive continent, investment in capacity building is in education so that the future generations of youth have equal opportunities as their peers in other parts of the world.



An important event for us at the ABN Group is the annual All Africa Business Lead- ers Awards (AABLA) ceremony that recognizes business leadership on the continent in vari- ous categories. Being an entrepreneur, I know from three decades of experience that building a business at the best of times is a challenge.



However, when you establish businesses in emerging markets like SSA, where you cannot take anything for granted, the skills, adaptability, perseverance and commitment needed requires leadership to be a lot more versatile and humane. To recognize these heroes from amongst us, we hosted the event for the sec- ond time at the Convention Centre in Sun City, South Africa, before a gathering of 450 business leaders from across Africa.



The event this year was attended by a large contingent of international business leaders from Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, the US and the UAE. We were also privileged to have in our midst, and perform- ing for our guests, two-time Grammy award- winner, Wouter Kellerman. An issue that limits greater participation is the restriction on business visas by South Africa. 



Many guests from Nigeria and Rwanda were unable to trav- el for the AABLA. As we talk about increasing strategic relationships, inter-Africa trade and other collaborations, we are still unable to develop a basic agreement on cross-border travel for Africans. These barriers need to be lifted at the earliest to have meaningful people-to-people engagements for better understanding and social engagements that are essential for building a strong foundation for collaborations.

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