South Africa

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — As the omicron variant sweeps through South Africa, Dr. Unben Pillay is seeing dozens of sick patients a day. Yet he hasn’t had to send anyone to the hospital.

That’s one of the reasons why he, along with other doctors and medical experts, suspect that the omicron version really is causing milder COVID-19 than delta, even if it seems to be spreading faster.

“They are able to manage the disease at home,” Pillay said of his patients. “Most have recovered within the 10 to 14-day isolation period.” said Pillay.

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A South African doctor who was one of the first to suspect a different coronavirus strain among patients said on Sunday that symptoms of the Omicron variant were so far mild and could be treated at home.

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, a private practitioner and chair of South African Medical Association, told Reuters that on Nov. 18 she noticed seven patients at her clinic who had symptoms different from the dominant Delta variant, albeit "very mild".

Nov 27 (Reuters) - Australia and several other countries joined nations imposing restrictions on travel from southern Africa on Saturday after the discovery of the new Omicron coronavirus variant sparked global concern and triggered a market sell-off.

Meanwhile, authorities in Amsterdam said that 61 out of around 600 people who arrived in the Dutch city on two flights from South Africa on Friday had tested positive for coronavirus. Health authorities were carrying out further tests to see if those cases involved the new variant.

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa have called for increased cooperation to bring peace to conflict-ridden regions in Africa, at the start of the Kenyan leader’s two-day state visit to South Africa.

Meeting in Pretoria Tuesday, the two leaders discussed the “grave situation in Ethiopia” and agreed that there is an urgent need for all parties to commit to an immediate, indefinite and negotiated cease-fire, Ramaphosa said.

They also condemned recent bomb attacks in the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The suspects in the murder case of a white farmer in South Africa that last year triggered riots and stoked weeks of racial tensions were acquitted on Friday, local media reported.

The killing of Brendin Horner, whose body was found tied to a pole at his farm in Free State province, led to riots in October last year. These were followed by a stand-off between white protesters and Black counter-protesters from the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Senekal, a central South African town near where the murder took place.

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 11 (Reuters) - South Africa's last white president F.W. de Klerk, who died on Thursday aged 85, stunned the world when he scrapped apartheid and negotiated a peaceful transfer of power to a Black-led government under Nelson Mandela.

But while he was feted globally and shared the Nobel Peace prize with the revered Mandela, de Klerk earned only scorn from many Blacks outraged by his failure to curb political violence in the turbulent years leading up to all-race elections in 1994.

CAPE TOWN, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said Sunday that it will not form coalitions with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party to govern over a quarter of municipalities across the country.

DA will not enter into any coalition agreement with the ANC and the third largest party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), DA leader John Steenhuisen virtually briefed media after the country's local government elections.

PRETORIA, Nov 4 (Reuters) - South Africa's governing African National Congress took 46% of the vote in this week's municipal elections, the final count showed on Thursday, the party's worst election outcome since taking power at the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Figures from the electoral commission put the ANC's biggest rival, the Democratic Alliance, on 22% of the vote and the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters on 10%.

At the last municipal elections in 2016 the ANC got 54%, at the time its lowest vote share since the end of apartheid.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world’s poorest people.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A report into dealings by senior officials at South Africa’s health ministry during the coronavirus pandemic was made public Wednesday, revealing corruption, fraud and the misappropriation of millions of dollars meant to aid the fight against COVID-19.

The highly awaited report by the Special Investigating Unit, released by President Cyril Ramaphosa, found wrongdoing by former health minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize and others.