Grey expands virtual international banking to East Africa

Grey (https://Grey.co), a fintech has raised $2 million in seed funding. The service offered by Grey enables its customers to have virtual international bank accounts for free and enjoy a seamless foreign payment process.

Grey was started by two Nigerians to simplify sending and receiving foreign payments for Africans in 2021 to empower people to live a location-independent lifestyle.

“I believe that the least of your worries as a freelancer, remote worker, or digital nomad should be sending or receiving payments, so we’ve made it easy. We like to say that we’re on a mission to make international payments as easy as sending an email," CEO of Grey, Idorenyin Obong, says. 

"We want to do impactful work to improve how Africa as a continent interacts with money across its borders. I am delighted that we’ve acquired an extensive and fiercely loyal user base.”

On Grey, you can create a foreign USD, GBP, and EUR bank account for free, send money to the UK and Europe, and receive payments from over 88 countries. The company also offers conversion directly to your local currency so that you can spend it easily on the app. 

Grey allows users to receive foreign payments in their preferred foreign currency and withdraw directly to mobile money or their local bank account.

In addition to the funding announcement, Grey also announced Its expansion into East Africa, starting with Kenya, and partnerships with payments giant Cellulant and ed-tech leader Moringa. Travelling to Kenya is much easier with Grey (https://bit.ly/3Q5bCyY) because you can pay vendors directly to M-pesa. 

For example, suppose you’re a traveller on a trip to Nairobi. In that case, you can convert any supported currencies to Kenyan Shillings and pay for services directly to M-Pesa, or other mobile money accounts. 

Grey is the easiest way to send money abroad and between African countries. The company plans to expand into more East African countries in the coming months. It has included support for Ugandan Shillings on the app, bringing the total number of supported currencies to six. 

This addition means that Grey customers in Nigeria and Kenya can send money to mobile money accounts in Uganda.

“Sending money worldwide is not just an individual problem; it affects African businesses too. Over the last two months, we’ve onboarded several African businesses to our private beta. Honestly, when I listen to the feedback about how much we’ve simplified a previously complex process, it pushes us to do more,” COO Femi Aghedo says, 

Grey’s seed funding round included participation from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Heirloom Fund, True Culture Fund, angel investors Alan Rutledge, Samvit Ramadurgam, Karthik Ramakrishnan, and other high-profile investors. 

According to the CEO, Idorenyin Obong, with this new round of capital, they plan to launch into new markets and extend their product suite to include not just remittances but also person-to-person and business-to-business payments so every African can enjoy seamless cross-border payments with low fees.

Grey’s services are available in Kenya and Nigeria via the Grey website (https://Grey.co), Play Store (https://bit.ly/3Q0zcfY), and App store (https://link.grey.co/iOSapp).

Zambians can make payments through Tingg digital payment platform

Zambia has signed a partnership agreement with leading fashion retailer LC Waikiki, which will enable customers to make payments from all LC Waikiki stores across Zambia through the Tingg digital payment platform.

As the ways consumers can pay for goods continue to evolve, LC Waikiki customers will now be able to make payments seamlessly via mobile money in all their branches in Zambia. 

This partnership reflects the growing synergies between retailers and payment solution providers across Africa, in serving a growing consumer base that is now preferring digital payment methods. 

Although there was a growing acceptance of digital payment methods before COVID-19, the pandemic served to accelerate this adoption.

“As a result of the government's efforts to eliminate cash handling by promoting contactless payments as a safer and more effective option post-COVID-19, we are seeing an increase in digital payments in Zambia. Additionally, more consumers are expressing a desire to use cash much less. The Zambian government, through regulators, continues to reaffirm this, as mobile money wallets are now more than ever a common way to store money,” says Cellulant Zambia Country Manager, Mr Gilbert Lungu.

“Tingg by Cellulant (www.tingg.africa) is an easy to use, versatile and exciting service which has guaranteed advanced security and is password-protected,” he added.

Millions of people on the African continent have adopted digital payment platforms largely owing to COVID-19. The requirement for contactless methods of making transactions transformed what was previously a nice-to-have into a necessity. 

For instance, the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System reported that in Q1 2021, electronic payments increased by 88% year over year in Nigeria, the continent's largest economy. The total amount of payments was $155 billion USD. Mobile payments increased by 189% while POS collections increased by 48%, showing that consumers are increasingly adopting digital channels for transactions.

LC Waikiki Country Manager Mrs Sevda Bilen stated that using mobile money to pay for clothes and other accessories is going to be a huge advantage for the company in Zambia: “LC Waikiki Zambia customers now have a wider choice of payment methods. True to our mission that offers fashion at affordable prices in line with the belief that “everyone deserves to dress well”, every one of our clientele can now seamlessly pay at any of our stores through Tingg. Consistently providing convenience for our clientele is something we strive to achieve daily.”

She further said “As our business grows in Zambia, we are constantly looking for opportunities to add value to our customer's experience of the LC Waikiki brand. The strategic partnership with Tingg by Cellulant represents our commitment to the Zambian market and we will continue to explore additional opportunities with the company.”

A mobile money platform is non-cash which allows customers to make payments and other transactions quickly and easily. It has been widely adopted by corporate, government and individual customers to purchase airtime, Person-2-Person cash transfers and utility bill Payments.

LC Waikiki has more than 1200 stores in 56 countries with almost 60,000 employees and a brand range that includes clothes and accessories for men, women and children of all ages, including babies, style-aware individuals and families. 

The brand accompanies itself with a distinctive methodology – high-quality clothes at great value. From close-fitting, stylish knitwear for men, to fashionable shoes and slippers for young girls, LC Waikiki has exactly what you need, when you need it.

Cellulant payments company integrates digital payments in 35 countries for more than 1000 retailers to unlock opportunities for millions of customers.

www.Cellulant.io

Think of Uganda Private HealthCare Providers as Partners

Grace Kiwanuka Ssali, the Executive Director of Uganda Healthcare Federation (UHF) an umbrella body for private health providers wants Uganda private healthcare providers to be treated as a partners and not profit centres. 

But this will require a mindset shift perception by the public, development partners and the government. 

Speaking to Health Journalists Network members during a boot camp held in Kampala,  Kiwanuka Ssali,  said the private health sector providers need more support from development partners and the government. 

"I know that development partners say we are putting money into government and supporting Private-not-for-profits (PNFPS) but it is not as easy as saying ... I am going to support these three people the rest of you will figure it out," Kiwanuka told HEJNU journalists. 

"We need to shift the perception about the private sector health providers to be partners and not profit centres." 

Kiwanuka said the private sector health providers are waiting for the government to allow them to officially offer COVID-19 vaccination services. 

Right now the a pilot project to do this was started in Kampala, because it a unique district in terms of healthcare - 98 percent of the healthcare facilities are privately owned. 

The Uganda private health providers resolved to dialogue with the government and have the Ministry of Health (MOH) draft a policy that’s now in very early stages to allow private health providers officially offer COVID-19 vaccination when it became practically impossible to do it on their own.

At the height of the pandemic, Kiwanuka says members of the Federation went directly to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers with proposals but they needed up to US$500,000 to make the smallest acceptable import order because companies were prioritizing the COVAX facility. The providers couldn’t afford this. 

While a number of private facilities are now offering vaccine services, according to the federation, these are being offered in a pilot mode. The accredited facilities went through a tight verification process where they gave priority to those that had been engaging in routine immunization prior to the pandemic and those that had the equipment and expressed capacity to arrest the adverse reactions from the vaccine in a timely manner case they happen.

Noteworthy, MOH had early last year drafted guidelines for private pharmacies and importers of pharmaceutical products to start dealing in vaccines, a move that was immediately shot down by critics including public health experts who expressed worries about fakes infiltrating the market.

Now, Kiwanuka says over the last two years, they have been in back and forth meetings with the policymakers to ensure that they are engaged early to participate in health emergencies. 

For her, it’s now clear that government cannot handle it on its own with lessons taken from COVID-19 interventions where they were overwhelmed when private hospitals started filling with critical COVID-19 patients and yet they were not involved in the preparations.

Because of this, she says all the solutions so far reached with the government on vaccine provision so far are not feasible for private providers. For instance, MOH had allowed them to use the National Medical Stores (NMS) to manage the vaccines logistics for them.

 

Insecurity heightens spread of Tuberculosis in Karamoja region

 A bad cough that lasts 3 weeks or longer, pain in the chest, coughing up blood or sputum (phlegm from deep inside the lungs) are some of the symptoms of Tuberculosis. 

In Napak district, Karamoja region coughing loudly and persistently without stopping resulted in a bullet shot for a TB patient and death. 

Now, patients suffering from Tuberculosis in Karamoja, one of the high burden regions with a TB prevalence rate ten times higher than the national average, are scared and want to run away from their villages due to insecurity and their TB treatment is being interrupted. 

The Karamoja region is also home to the U.S. government's Accelerated Control of TB in Karamoja program or PACT Karamoja supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched 2018. 

USAID's PACT Karamoja program is a $7.5 million agreement (2020-2025) that aims to address the Karamoja Region’s high TB prevalence and low treatment success rates by supporting locally generated solutions to mobilize health facilities, village health teams, and community members for accelerated screening, testing, identification, and successful treatment and prevention of TB.

Paul Losiru was in his hut sleeping at night and he started coughing because he is a TB patient but on medication. Outside the “Manyatta” were he resided cattle rustlers were passing by and they heard him coughing persistently. 

They ordered him to get out of his house because his coughing and the noise irritated the warriors and alerted the security.

‘’I had them saying that each time we pass by your home, you are seriously coughing, it’s like you are cursing us or if not you are signalling to the security that we are around. This is intolorable. I immediately heard gunshots,’’ Daniel Kedi his neighbour narrated.  

This is terrible because the Karamoja region in North Eastern Uganda is one of the high burden regions with a TB prevalence rate ten times higher than the national average. The treatment success rate in the Karamoja region was below 50% until an emergency response was declared in 2019. 

TB is the world's deadliest infectious disease, infecting about 10 million people and killing 1.5 million globally each year. Uganda is among the 30 high burden TB and HIV countries in the world. 

As dangerous as TB is, it is treatable and curable but in Uganda TB disease still causes illness in about 90,000 Ugandans annually including 1,500 people who get infected with drug-resistant TB. And in Uganda, about 15,600 people died from TB in Uganda in 2019.

In 2019, of the estimated 1,500 drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) cases, only 559 were diagnosed and notified to the National TB and Leprosy Program (NTLP) 

After killing Losiru, the warriors picked his phone and they used it to call the relatives inquiring about the mood of people since the incident happened. Now TB patients in Karamoja are scared of what will happen to them too. 

Maria Nakoru, a TB patient and a resident of Iriiri trading center, says coughing is a must for TB patients and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. They are turning to God for protection.

Its not only the warriors that are scaring TB patients in Karamoja but patients are also grappling with a food crisis and yet the medicines require them to feed well. She fears that if insecurity is not addressed in the region, time will come when they will be slaughtered like chicken. 

Losiru and Nakoru both live in Napak district, which records a high number of Tuberculosis cases ranging between 500 and 600 annually. 

James Lemukol the district Health Officer Napak says that the TB patients are now traumatized because the insecurity is affecting their treatment cycle. Lemukol said when patients fail to follow the treatment series, they are at increased risks of morbidity, drug resistance, transmission and mortality.

However, without security even with the USAID Accelerated Control of TB project home based in the district, the prevalence will increase and success rate will continue to decline. 

An Integrated approach of cervical cancer and Schistosomiasis treatment and care present opportunities towards elimination

By Esther Nakkazi

Initiating an integrated approach for cervical cancer and Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) for affected women and girls presents an opportunity towards the World Health Organization (WHO) elimination target over the next decade.

The WHO targets to eliminate transmission of cervical cancer by 2030 and its policy brief on deworming adolescent girls and women of reproductive age aims to control schistosomiasis in the same time frame. 

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO, has stated that “FGS is a silent and neglected epidemic, affecting the same people who carry a disproportionate global burden of HIV and cervical cancer”.

Now, scientists say there is an increased probability to achieve the WHO target by 2030 if an integrated approach for FGS and cervical cancer into routine sexual and reproductive health care services where affected women and girls most likely seek prevention, treatment and care is implemented.

“We want to support, develop and implement worldwide evidence based initiatives to improve on three spheres; first HPV and cervical cancer prevention. 

Secondly, FGS diagnosis and patient information and thirdly, quality of treatment which has to be tailored to the needs through research and policy initiatives,” says Eyrun Flörecke Kjetland a professor at Oslo University Hospital.

Scientists led by Dr Julie Jacobson, a global health leader who serves as Managing Partner for the global health non-profit Bridges to Development published in January in the Nature Reproductive Health Journal  says the skills necessary for FGS management is a critical step to prepare for proper diagnosis and treatment of women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa by trained health professionals. 

The suggested competencies can now serve as the foundation to create educative tools and curricula to better train health care workers on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of FGS, says the research.

Kjetland says right now there is an enormous thrust in the cervical cancer community to push forward to eliminate it is an opportunity for FGS to piggyback as the little sister in the system on a disease (FGS) that is life threatening with less much less funding, much less push. “It’s an excellent opportunity to try to wedge our way in and join with the big systems program.”

FGS is a chronic disease caused by parasitic worms, schistosomes, transmitted by contact with infested fresh water. An estimated 56 million women may have FGS in Africa, but almost none are diagnosed or treated. 

FGS like cervical cancer can be life threatening and life altering. They are both dangerous conditions for sexual reproductive health in endemic areas. They both cause physical pain and discomfort to women who also have to contend with stigma and isolation.

FGS as a common gynaecological lesion could be confused to be cancer or an STI. “When we looked at the implications of FGS on HPV and HIV, we found an association between the high risk of HPV which causes cancer and the FGS lesions,” says Kjetland.

“To me the most dangerous situation would be that you are misdiagnosing something as cervical cancer when it is genital schistosomiasis, removing parts of the cervix, unnecessarily creating problems for the women, fertility wise and vice versa as well,” says Kjetland.

As the overlap of the incidence of cervical cancer and the prevalence of schistosomiasis presents itself in Africa, coupling the two diseases using an integrated approach through opportunities in screening, early treatment and awareness creation would maximise cost effectiveness from limited resources available, says Teresa Norris a sexual health specialist and HPV expert, the founder and president of HPV global action.

Scientists also have an opportunity through a screening method that can be used for both diseases, the Automated Visual Evaluation (AVE), a deep learning computer application.

A typical country programme would first target HPV and cervical cancer prevention by combining screening simultaneously girls aged nine to 14 and then screening and treatment for women 25 to 45 years, scientists say.

“We would first of all do screening for cervical cancer lesions using AVE while simultaneously screening for FGS lesions using this same tool and then providing treatment,” said Norris.

Secondly, the program can look at the country wide HPV vaccination programs that run through GAVI while simultaneously providing Praziquantel through GAVI to supplement the mass Drug Administration programs. Many GAVI countries also have an objective of eliminating Schistosomiasis transmission.

The scientists say they need to consider the country’s specific resources, needs and attitudes to ensure this will work.“This will give us an opportunity to be mapping for FGS and cervical cancer via a pilot project proof of concept studies in Africa in several places,” says Norris. “These initiatives in individual countries will be able to assess the accessibility and feasibility and then we can move towards scaling it up for population control in many African countries.”

Both diseases also require early treatment for better outcomes. “The diagnosis and management strategies for the two need to be hand in hand. For the young girls we know that this can be prevented if you treat it early, so they don’t have to walk into their first sexual intercourses with damaged genitals,” says Kjetland.

Cervical cancer and FGS also need more awareness creation among populations, academics and professionals. But more work is required for FGS which is hardly known. “Currently, no women are diagnosed with FGS or informed that they have this disease and FGS is not mentioned in any prevention programs,” says Kjetland.

“To many of us, learning about the prominence of FGS is new for us and then also further to that is adding that opportunity to have a deworming strategy in a lot of our projects is something that’s new in our in our community,” says Norris.

Sierra Leone has managed to make remarkable progress to control Schistosomiasis. “And the most important lesson I think we’ve learned over the last 10 years certainly is the power of integration,”says Mary Hodges, Adjunct professor, Njala University, Sierra Leone.

“Transitioning from mass campaigns for preschoolers into an integrated service delivery that included family planning for their caregivers, was a real success. And going forward, I would recommend that further integration channels for adolescents, women of reproductive age, should take a careful look at the opportunities to ride on,” says Hodges.

Kakuuto Health Centre IV alarming birth deliveries

 You have got to give it up for women in Kyotera district. The fertility rate is over the top. At Kakuuto Health Centre IV in Kyotera district baby deliveries are about six per day which now averages 180 deliveries per month.

In 2020 the population of Kyotera district was recorded to be 261,000 people. With the current additions you can do the maths. The issues may be lack of access to contraception or boredom – I don’t know.

The health officers at Kakuuto HCIV say they are overwhelmed. A health centre IV is a mini hospital with wards for men, women, and children and should be able to admit patients. It should have a senior medical officer and another doctor as well as a theatre for carrying out emergency operations.

At Kakuuto HCIV, they have an acute shortage of beds now. Of the 6 baby deliveries done everyday at least two are caesarian, which takes away time and resources for other pregnancy or antenatal related cases that are not delivering babies.

Dr. Aloysious Musoke, the Medical Officer in charge of Kakuuto HCIV, said they have a 15-bed capacity which is not enough for the increasing number of patients at the maternity ward. As a result, Musoke says they are forced to improvise with mattresses so that the patients can get maternity care from the floor.

A non-governmental organisation Brick By Brick Uganda, through its Babies And Mothers Alive (BAMA) project, built a neonatal unit to save premature babies in the congested ward but this is not enough.

Due to increased numbers, Dr. Musoke further noted that the insufficient drug supply at the health center is also worsening the situation since the drugs run out of stock before the next cycle. 

He explains that this nature of the health center is meant to be supplied drugs worth over Ugx30, 000,000 but the National Medical Stores provides drugs worth Ugx11,000,000 which is not enough considering the performance of the Health center and the numbers of patients.

Kate Nalwadda, a caregiver of a caesarian patient, says they do not have space to sleep in because the floor is being occupied by the expecting mothers.

Edward Muwanga, the Kyotera District Health Officer, he is aware of the challenge and he attributed it to lack of financial resources to purchase more beds for the maternity and other wards at the health centre.

Agnes Namusiitwa, the Kakuuto Female Councilor, and Kyotera LC5 Vice-chairperson, says that different patients and caregivers have expressed the same concern on different occasions but there is nothing to do in the meantime but to improvise. She adds that they are still lobbying some beds from good Samaritans and Non-governmental Organisations.

Frog limbs regrown - research study

US scientists have regrown the legs of frogs after a brief drug treatment, marking a significant advance for regenerative medicine.

The team at Tufts University, in collaboration with colleagues at Harvard University,  both Massachusetts, used a combination of five drugs applied in a wearable silicone cap that was placed over the stump of the frog leg, that previously had been amputated.

Each drug had a different purpose, including reducing inflammation, promoting growth of blood vessels and muscle, and stopping scar tissue.

The findings, in Science Advances, showed that after an 18-month period of regrowth, frogs restored a functional leg able to respond to stimuli such as touch.

“The fact that it required only a brief exposure to the drugs to set in motion a months-long regeneration process suggests that frogs and perhaps other animals may have dormant regenerative capabilities that can be triggered into action,” said Nirosha Murugan, first author of the paper.

Source: EARA News Digest