₦airaland Forum

The active cases of COVID-19 has risen to 7,578 as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC confirms 84 fresh infections in 13 states.
The cases bring the total number of recorded infections in the country so far to 163,736.
The health agency made the announcement on Saturday night in a post on its verified Facebook page.
According to the new report, about 27 patients have been discharged after testing negative twice for the virus.
So far, the country has recorded 154,098 recoveries while about 2,060 patients have died due to complications from the dreaded virus.

In the face of COVID-19, we must protect ourselves very strongly. The number of active medical records has been increasing, and we cannot relax our vigilance.

Shipments of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine are expected to be down by 80 percent nationwide next week as the company struggles with manufacturing problems, the Biden Administration reported Friday.
Just 700,000 doses have been allocated, compared to the 4.9 million doses that were distributed across the country this week,White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients confirmed.
Johnson & Johnson will be delivering fewer vaccine doses next week, but Zients did not say how many although he insisted the company expects to be able to deliver 8 million doses per week by the end of April.
Zients also said Johnson & Johnson is in the process of installing a new management team at the Baltimore facility run by its manufacturing partner Emergent BioSolutions, which is where the vaccine production snafus have happened.
"The company is doing everything it can," Zients said. "They have their best people at that plant."
Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Lisa Cannellos confirmed the company was working with the federal Food and Drug Administration to secure an emergency use authorization to get the plant up and running.
"The Company expects to deliver nearly 100 million single-shot doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the U.S. government by the end of May," Cannellos said in a statement.
The dramatic drop in Johnson & Johnson shots was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The J&J shot was expected to significantly boost the pace at which Americans become fully vaccinated because it requires only a single shot.
While the pharma giant is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the vaccines are manufactured in Baltimore. Emergent BioSolutions has also been making the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines.
But up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine were ruined when Emergent BioSolutions workers mixed up the ingredients of the two vaccines. And a week ago the company reported that a batch of its key vaccine ingredient didn't meet quality control standards at a Baltimore facility.
Zients said from now on, only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be manufactured at that plant.
Last week, two Biden administration officials assured NBC News that this setback would not affect their timeline to have enough doses for the U.S. adult population by the end of May.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was shown to be 86 percent effective in preventing severe forms of Covid-19. It received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in late February.
The company rolled out about 4 million doses almost immediately, but shipments have fluctuated significantly since then.

Coronavirus cases are rising across the United States, but experts are divided over whether the country is on the cusp of a fourth wave of the epidemic.
Where America's coronavirus epidemic stands
According to the Washington Post, the daily number of newly reported U.S. coronavirus cases is climbing once again and is nearing the level of last summer's peak—although it's still significantly lower than the record peak reached this winter.
Experts have said the recent uptick in coronavirus cases likely stems from two key factors: states easing coronavirus-related restrictions, and the spread of more transmissible coronavirus variants.
According to data compiled by the Times, the United States' average daily number of newly reported coronavirus cases over the past week was 64,019—up by 18% compared with the average from two weeks ago.
The Times' data showed that, as of Monday morning, the rates of newly reported coronavirus cases were "staying high" in Washington, D.C and 24 states that have reported a daily average of at least 15 newly reported cases per 100,000 people over the past week. Those states are Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.
In addition, the rate of newly reported coronavirus cases was "going up" as of Monday morning in Hawaii, Indiana, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Washington, and Wisconsin, which have had comparatively lower case rates, the Times reports.
Meanwhile, data also shows hospitalizations are rising again. According to the Times' data, 40,740 Americans with Covid-19 were hospitalized on Sunday—up by 1% from the average from two weeks ago.
Even as cases and hospitalizations are increasing, data shows deaths are continuing to decline. According to the Times' data, 277 new deaths were linked to the coronavirus on Sunday, down 23% from the average two weeks ago.
hy experts are split over whether the US is on the verge of a fourth wave of the epidemic
Despite the rise in U.S. coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, experts are divided on whether the United States will see a fourth surge in epidemic. 
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky during a White House briefing last week said she's "scared" the United States will see a sharp increase in coronavirus cases even as millions of Americans are being vaccinated against Covid-19.
During an interview on Fox's "Fox News Sunday," Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, echoed Walensky's concerns, saying the United States is "almost in a new pandemic" because of the spread of a more contagious variant of the coronavirus called B.1.1.7, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom.
Osterholm during a separate interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" said he expects the next two weeks will bring "the highest number of cases reported globally since the beginning of the pandemic." Osterholm added, "In terms of the United States, we're just at the beginning of this surge. We haven't even really begun to see it yet."
However, other experts have said they don't expect the United States will see a severe surge in coronaviruses cases.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor for the White House's Covid-19 response, during an interview with NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday said there will be a race "between the potential for a surge and our ability to vaccinate as many people as we possibly can," but he doesn't think the United States will experience a wave of infections as severe as the previous ones.
Similarly, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb during an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday said he doesn't expect a "true fourth wave" resurgence of the coronavirus because of America's accelerating vaccine rollout.
Gottlieb said, "I think that there's enough immunity in the population that you're not going to see a true fourth wave of infection." Gottlieb added that he believes the recent spike in new cases are "pockets of infections around the country" that won't fuel a fourth surge.
Experts also say that, if a fourth wave does materialize, it will likely be less deadly than previous waves, as a majority of seniors, who are at high risk for a severe case of Covid-19, have at least received one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine (New York Times, 4/5; Thebault, Washington Post, 4/4; King, NPR, 4/2; Mastrangelo, The Hill, 4/2; Weixel, The Hill, 4/4; Diamond/Liptak, CNN, 4/3; Cohen, Politico, 4/4; McEvoy, Forbes, 4/4).

Millions of people in the United States are turning down the COVID-19 vaccine, while countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria still battle with polio. In Utah, every adult age 16 and older is now eligible to receive the vaccine. However, Utah is still ranked among the lowest of U.S. states per capita to be fully vaccinated. Should these precious doses be sent elsewhere to those who are actually willing to receive them?
Historically, low-income nations have suffered disproportionately due to the inequitable allocation and distribution of vaccines. This inequity creates vast health disparities between upper and lower-income nations. In the midst of the current pandemic, history is on track to repeat itself — prioritizing the health of the rich nations over that of the poor. This will ultimately result in more people coping with greater and longer-lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We can learn from our efforts to eradicate polio that equitable vaccine distribution is the only way to sustainably control the spread of the virus on a global scale. In order to successfully mitigate the impact of the pandemic globally, vaccines must be distributed both equitably and proportionately throughout the world — regardless of socioeconomic status.
Data interpretation by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center indicates that historic trends of inequitable vaccine distribution will remain in place as the world fights the spread of COVID-19. Of the 5.3 billion doses purchased, fewer than 800 million have been reserved for the world’s poorest countries while their population far exceeds that of high-income countries.
Countries such as the United States and Canada have purchased enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations more than four times over, whereas most middle and low-income countries do not have enough doses for a single vaccination of their populations. This disproportionate distribution of vaccines, based on wealth rather than population size, causes significant health disparities for the larger number of people living in low-income countries who may have to wait until 2023 or 2024 for vaccination.
Some would argue that an equitable, worldwide distribution of vaccines is not necessary in all circumstances. In the case of COVID-19, where transmission is facilitated through person-to-person contact, countries with lower population densities have reported fewer cases. For example, according to Our World in Data, countries in Africa have some of the lowest COVID-related death counts in the world. However, the BBC states that Africa’s low numbers may be due to their experience handling epidemics (such as Ebola), warmer climate, younger population and underreporting due to a lack of testing and resources.
Although some might argue that countries such as the United States stand in greater need of a vaccine (given that they have the largest number of cases worldwide), those numbers can be attributed in part to a greater amount of testing and resources available.
The time to make a worldwide plan for vaccine distribution is now. COVID-19 needs to be our wake-up call. Now is the time to prepare and plan for future threats while preventing further mortalities. To do this, international collaboration led by World Health Organization needs to be prioritized.
COVID-19 will soon likely be in the rear-view mirror, and the world will be eager to forget about its hardships. However, we cannot forget how the entire world can be impacted so rapidly—or the universal consequences of not acting quickly and working together.
If we do not act now by creating a plan to allocate funds and distribute resources where they are most needed, the next pandemic could have even more devastating effects.

Amidst the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) have threatened to commence an ‘indefinite strike’ on Thursday if the Nigerian government fails to meet their demands.
The president of the association, Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, confirmed the development in a communique issued at the end of the NARD’s extraordinary National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held on Saturday.
The president said the ultimatum given to the federal government to meet its earlier demands will expire on March 31, 2021 with no significant achievement.
“The NEC unanimously agreed that NARD should proceed on a total and indefinite strike on the 1st of April 2021, by 8 am if the demands are not met,” Mr Okhuaihesuyi said.
Resident doctors, who are undergoing training to become consultants, make up a large percentage of doctors in Nigeria’s tertiary hospitals.

COVID-19 vaccinations are on the rise in the U.S. — and so are coronavirus cases.
After a plateau lasting several weeks, the number of cases is once again on the increase in parts of the country.
New cases, test positivity rates and hospital admissions are creeping upward. An increase in daily COVID-19 deaths is likely to follow, health officials say.
Calling it a race between vaccinations and variants, Ashish Jha, a public health policy researcher and dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, tweeted: "Well, despite phenomenal vaccination rates, variants pulled ahead this week."
According to a daily report from the White House COVID-19 team, more than 410,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the U.S. this past week — a 9% increase from the previous week. More than 33,000 people were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 this past week, representing a 2% increase.
The number of new cases and hospitalizations per day is still far lower than an all-time peak in mid-January, when the U.S. recorded around 250,000 new daily cases. Still, the current trend in cases raises concerns among health officials that the U.S. could see a fourth surge in coronavirus infections as states discard masking mandates and some members of the pandemic-fatigued public flaunt mitigation measures.

New and expectant moms are getting reassuring new evidence about the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women who get the shot show a robust immune response similar to that of women who have not conceived or given birth, researchers reported Thursday.
The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, also found the moms’ antibodies were present in their umbilical cord blood and breast milk, suggesting they pass on immunity to their babies.
The findings are key for OB-GYNs and other medical professionals who have faced “a complete lack of data” because pregnant and breastfeeding women were left out of the initial vaccine trials, said Dr. Andrea Edlow, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a study co-author.
“It does seem like great news,” Edlow told NBC's "TODAY" show. “This study is one piece of the puzzle that's essential to try to give pregnant and lactating women evidence-based counseling around the vaccine.”
The study, conducted at two medical centers, included 131 women of reproductive age: 84 were pregnant, 31 were breastfeeding and 16 were used as the control group. All received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

The Nigerian government has suspended services by Emirates Airline in and out of the West African country in a row over COVID-19 requirements, according to multiple reports in the nation’s media. Newspaper reports said that Nigeria aviation minister Hadi Sirika had enacted the ban after Emirates...

UNICEF in a press statement to commemorate the World Water Day, further noted that “although about 70 per cent of Nigerians are reported to have access to a basic water services, more than half of these water sources are contaminated.” According to UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawks, “only nine litres of water on average is available to a Nigerian daily.” The statement read in part:”At the current rate, the country will miss the SDG targets on people’s access to water, unless there is a strong commitment and appropriate action taken by all stakeholders. “While the impact of water scarcity can be felt by all, no one suffers more than the most vulnerable children. ”Children and families living in vulnerable communities face the double-edged sword of coping with high water scarcity levels while having the lowest water services, making access to sufficient water especially susceptible to climate shocks and extreme events. “We have to act now both to address the water crisis in Nigeria to prevent it from getting worse and if we want to meet the SDGs,” said Peter Hawkins.

The problem of drinking water must be resolved as soon as possible. Children are suffering. The government should find a solution and must take action.

While everyone's hopes are trained on COVID-19 vaccines to lead the way out of the pandemic, public health experts say that other public health tools are still crucial for stopping the virus.
One of those tools — contact tracing — may finally be ready to have its moment, says Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. During the winter surge, contact tracers were overwhelmed; they couldn't possibly reach everyone who tested positive — and their close contacts — to tell them to stay home to slow the spread.
That's starting to change, Watson says. Case numbers are entering the zone where contact tracers can get on top of transmission. Vaccinations are ramping up and injecting hope into the public health response.
And there's finally billions of dollars — in the American Rescue Plan — to boost these efforts, so that if concerning coronavirus variants continue to spread through the summer and beyond, health departments can be ready, Watson says.
Contact tracing only works to stop the spread, though, if everyone who's infected or exposed is able to follow the public health guidance to stay home for days or weeks. For people who can't — because they don't have money to pay for utilities or rent, or friends who are willing to get groceries for them and drop them off — health departments have a fix.
It's called care resource coordination. It's so little known, it's like a secret weapon in the pandemic public health response — one that can make it more effective and more equitable. And public health experts urge that this is the time to take advantage of new funding opportunities and expand the reach of this service.
Karina Acuna has been doing this work since July, when the public health department in Pima County, Ariz., started its care resource coordination program.
"Almost every call that we have it starts off — it's like, 'Why are you calling and how do you have my number?' " says Acuna. The people she's calling have either just been diagnosed with COVID-19 or have just found out they're a close contact and need to quarantine. They're often stressed or sick; it can be a scary time.
She talks them through what they might need for the time they need to stay home — groceries, prescription medications, cleaning supplies. Then she looks through her list of 95 local health and social service agencies and connects them to programs that might be able to help.
"It always ends up being a good call for them because they're getting the help that they might need or didn't even know that they had available to them," Acuna says.
Sometimes, it's simple things that people need, like extra masks. Larissa Morgan, a community health representative who does this work for the Navajo Nation, says for people there, it's often cleaning supplies.
"[It's been] hard to get Clorox wipes; it's hard to get Lysol sprays," she says. "I would say that food would come next and then water, because we do have individuals who still don't have running water."
Sometimes, the needs are even more substantial. People need help planning funeral services for loved ones who died of COVID-19. Care coordinators describe comforting people who are grieving in isolation. Or helping them find housing.
"I can tell you, I have had to help a client where they were actually being evicted — the marshal was at the residence, putting them out," says Sharonda Wright, a care resource coordinator at the Fulton County health department in Georgia. "They were needing shelter and needing financial support and trying to gather their belongings at the same time."
The person was able to stay with a relative briefly, and then Wright connected them to transitional housing, she says.
Meeting these needs isn't just important for those individuals. If staying at home isn't possible for people who are infected, the virus has more opportunities to spread, which makes it a public health problem. Care resource coordinators provide a kind of temporary safety net that helps people stay nourished with chicken soup when they're sick with COVID-19, and helps families take care of each other by providing them with masks and cleaning supplies.

Medical experts in the United States are trying to assuage fears that Covid-19 vaccines may be unsafe after several European countries suspended AstraZeneca’s shot following reports of blood clots among some recipients.
On Tuesday, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania became the latest countries to join a growing list of nations suspending the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford shot over blood clot concerns. Germany, France, Italy and Spain all said on Monday they would also stop administering the shot.
The European Medicines Agency, which evaluates drug safety for the EU, called a meeting Thursday to review the findings. So far, it’s maintained that the benefits of the shot when it comes to preventing hospitalizations and deaths still “outweigh the risks of side effects.” The World Health Organization agreed, urging countries on Wednesday to continue using AstraZeneca’s shots.
Without the results from the EMA’s forthcoming meeting, it’s hard to say whether the vaccines are causing the reported blood clots, medical experts in the U.S. told CNBC, but the pharmaceutical giant already has a public relations mess on its hands. Some doctors in the U.S. are worried that the European nations are prematurely responding to political pressure and safety fears, and it will take extensive efforts to rebuild trust in the vaccine if it is allowed back online.
“There’s now been a pall over this vaccine,” Dr. William Schaffner, an epidemiologist and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told CNBC in a phone interview.
“I think if the vaccine is cleared — not guilty — there will have to be a substantial public relations effort made in Europe and around the world in order to restore confidence in this vaccine,” he said.
No red flags in U.S.
While the AstraZeneca vaccine hasn’t been authorized for use in the U.S. just yet, White House Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anthony Fauci told lawmakers Wednesday that there will likely be enough safety and efficacy data to grant the vaccine authorization in April.
When asked whether AstraZeneca’s suspension in European countries could stoke fear among Americans taking other vaccines, Fauci reiterated that the shots undergo rigorous clinical trials and are reviewed by an independent safety monitoring board before they’re widely distributed.
“The entire process is both transparent and independent, and we explain that to people and take the time to address their hesitancy without being confrontative,” Fauci told lawmakers during a hearing by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
This isn’t the first time Fauci has stressed the safety of the current vaccines amid AstraZeneca’s suspension. The infectious diseases expert told MSNBC in an interview Tuesday that scientists in the U.S. continue to carefully evaluate the vaccines as they are deployed for any adverse reactions among recipients.
For instance, medical experts were concerned about reports of severe allergic reactions — or anaphylaxis — occurring among people who were vaccinated with Pfizer’s and Moderna’s jabs. However, those cases appear to be rare, he said, even as the nation has distributed at least one shot to 73 million adult Americans — more than 28% of the population.
“Thus far, and you have to keep following these things very carefully, there are no safety signals that turn out to be red flags,” Fauci said regarding the currently deployed vaccines in the U.S.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told Reuters in an interview published Monday that he has been “pretty reassured” by statements from European regulators that the problems could be occurring by chance.
“I was a bit surprised that so many countries decided to put pause on the administration of the vaccine, especially at a time where the disease itself is so incredibly threatening in most of those countries,” Collins later told CNN on Wednesday, adding that he doesn’t have access to the “primary data that might have caused them to be alarmed.”
More data needed
Adverse medical problems such as blood clots happen whether people are vaccinated or not. The problem scientists are now trying to determine is whether the vaccines were the culprit, Schaffner said.
“We knew in the beginning as we started to vaccinate, given the fact that we are targeting older adults, medical events occur in that population just every day, even without vaccines,” Schaffner told CNBC.
“It’s possible that if you get vaccinated on Monday, certain medical events will occur on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” he said. “The question is: Did the vaccine accelerate, precipitate or cause these events?”
For its part, AstraZeneca said in a response statement on Sunday that of the more than 17 million people in the EU and the U.K. who have received a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, fewer than 40 cases of blood clots had been reported as of last week.
The pharmaceutical giant said that across the EU and U.K. there had been 15 events of deep vein thrombosis and 22 events of pulmonary embolism reported among those vaccinated. Those figures would suggest that the adverse events are occurring at a lower rate than what would be expected in the general population, not higher.
“I don’t think this is real, but I’m very concerned because this is the vaccine that we were all counting on globally,” Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, told CNBC in a phone interview, adding that the shot costs less than its competitors. Del Rio noted that without the data, however, it’s hard to determine whether the suspensions are appropriate.
“This will require major damage control,” del Rio said.
Politics could be the problem
There are some concerns that the problem with AstraZeneca’s vaccine may be more political. It also comes at a dangerous time: Some European nations are battling yet another wave of new Covid-19 infections even as vaccines are deployed.
So far, the E.U.’s vaccine rollout has been sluggish compared with that of other countries, such as the U.S. and the U.K.
“It is a big worry that Europe just doesn’t have that many people vaccinated,” Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a former Covid advisor to President Joe Biden, told CNBC on Tuesday. “It’s another reason that we have to be worried about the situation of Covid in other countries, not just in the United States.” 
The suspensions follow a public dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca in January when the pharmaceutical company said it was forced to cut its initial supply of doses to the bloc short. Several European countries also initially declined to recommend the shot to residents over 65, saying there was insufficient evidence to show it was effective, before reversing that decision.
“It may be that ... the governments are trying to respond to people’s worries about the vaccine and not necessarily the data,” said Emanuel, a bioethicist and oncologist who serves as vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Actions don’t necessarily follow the data. They follow more emotional responses to these kind of things,” he said.

Authorities for Lagos Nigeria don confirm say di AstraZeneca covid19 vaccine fit cause some side effects for pipo wey collect di injection, but e go wear out with time.
Lagos Commissioner for Health Akin Abayomi wey be virologist and professor for im medical field say im no feel any bad effects di first day wen im take di vaccine but im get slight bodi pains and headache di next day.
E say "di next day I feel burn pains, a bit cold and di injection site dey a bit sour, I take panadol, do exercise and go sleep, wen I wake up, I dey alright".
Tori bin comot for local media say pipo wey take di AstraZeneca covid19 vaccine for Lagos dey feel serious side effects.
Kontris like France, Austria, Irish Republic, Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria and Iceland don suspend di Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine with immediate effect sake of [blot cloth] complain of health concerns reports.
But di Health Commissioner say di side effects go differ from pesin to pesin and some pipo no go feel anything at all.
Prof. Akin Abayomi say some pipo wey take di vaccine go feel di following side effects.
Headache
Fever
Body pain
Shivering
Pain for injection spot
One in five million pipo wey take di vaccine fit collapse or enta shock.
But dis no be only for covid19 vaccine, e fit happun to pesin wey collect any oda vaccine.
World Health Organization say side effects of COVID-19 vaccines include fever, muscle pain, redness for injection spot, fatigue, headache, diarrhoea etc.
Dem say di side effects dey comot on dia own within days.
Di commissioner say goment no permit any private organisation to administer COVID-19 vaccine, say na only goment fit give di vaccine for now.
Di Nigeria goment say di Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine wey dem collect no follow for di batch wey dey worry some European kontries.
Some European kontris - and recently Thailand for Asia - don march brake ontop using dis brand of vaccine after reports comot say e dey cause blood clot as side effects.
Di National Primary Healthcare Development Agency [NPHCDA], wey dey in charge of di vaccination program for Nigeria, say although investigation don begin to see whether di batch wey arrive di kontri on 2 March get dis particular side effect, dem dey confident in di clinical testing wey rule say di vaccine dey “safe and effective”.
For Nigeria, di president Muhammadu Buhari and di vice Yemi Osinbajo, some state governors and front-line health workers, don already collect di vaccine.
World Health Organization [WHO] on Monday beg kontris across di world not to pause Covid vaccinations, as several major EU kontris stop di rollouts of di Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.
WHO say no evidence dey wey get link between di vaccine and blood clots.

Nigeria’s health authorities Thursday evening through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) moved quickly to douse growing anxiety around the suspension of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, produced in partnership with Oxford.
Early Thursday, four European countries citing blood clotting difficulties and a suspected death arising from the usage of the vaccine, suspended its use.
In a statement signed by Mohammed Ohitoto, the head of its public relations unit, the NPHCDA said “while we await the outcome of the investigations, it is important to clearly state that Nigeria did not receive any doses from the batch of vaccines which is at issue,” implying that the vaccines are in batches.
While the agency stated the batch in question as ABV5300, it, however, did not state that of Nigeria.
The agency emphasised the Nigerian government’s confidence in the vaccine, saying the government will not discontinue its use.
“We are satisfied that the clinical evidence indicates the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be safe and effective. Our assessment is in line with countries such as Spain and the UK who have indicated that they will continue to administer the vaccine, because it remains an important tool to protect against COVID-19.”
Nigeria took delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine in early March and has since begun administration to prioritised groups.
Denmark, Iceland and Norway have suspended the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as a precaution amid reports of blood clotting in some people who have received it.
The Danish health authority said that there was a reported death in the country but that “at present, it cannot be concluded whether there is a link between the vaccine and the blood clots.”
Use of the vaccine will be suspended until further notice, the health authority said on Thursday, but the decision will be reviewed in two weeks’ time.
Shortly after the Danish announcement, Iceland followed suit. Hours later, the Norwegian health authority also said they too would suspend vaccinations after the report from Denmark.
This comes after Austria suspended a batch of the vaccines following the death of a woman due to multiple blood clots and the hospitalisation of another person with a blockage in the arteries of the lungs.
France and the UK have, however, ruled out the following suit for now, stressing the suspension in other countries “is a precautionary measure”.
The European Medicines Agency said it was reviewing the incidents as well as all other “conditions related to blood clots” but a preliminary review suggested there was no “specific issue” with the batch.
As of Tuesday, the medicines regulator said, there were 22 cases of blood clotting reported among the three million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area.
“We are in the middle of the largest and most important vaccination rollout in Danish history. And right now we need all the vaccines we can get. Therefore, putting one of the vaccines on pause is not an easy decision,” said S?ren Brostr?m, Director General of the Danish Health Authority.
“But precisely because we vaccinate so many, we also need to respond with timely care when there is knowledge of possible serious side effects. We need to clarify this before we can continue to use the vaccine from AstraZeneca.”
The change means that people who have received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Denmark will have to wait before they receive the second dose, the health authority said.
Frontline health staff aged 65 or over will continue to receive vaccination appointments with one of the other two vaccines, they specified.
The authority said they are not opting out of the AstraZeneca vaccine but just putting it on hold.
“There is good evidence that the vaccine is both safe and effective,” Brostr?m said.
A senior official at the National Institute of Public Health, Geir Bukholm, told reporters on Thursday afternoon: “We are taking a break in Norway from vaccination with AstraZeneca.”
“We are waiting for information to see if there is a link between the vaccination and this case of blood clots.
“It is the precautionary principle,” Bukholm said, stressing that no link had yet been established between the Anglo-Swedish laboratory’s vaccine and the cases of thrombosis, including one fatality, reported in Denmark.
In a statement issued in reaction to the Danish announcement, Britain’s government said “people should still go and get their COVID-19 vaccine when asked to do so.”
“It has not been confirmed that the report of a blood clot, in Denmark, was caused by the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca,” Dr Phil Bryan, Safety Lead at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said.
France’s Health Minister, Olivier Véran, told a press conference late afternoon that according to the nation’s High Authority for Health, “there is no reason to suspend vaccinations with AstraZeneca.”

DEPTFORD, New Jersey — As many communities struggle with COVID-19, volunteers in Nigeria are stepping up to the challenge. In the Kano region, for example, community leaders spurred residents of the local communities to get tested for COVID-19. Lagos has hosted contact training programs to educate local communities. These programs have allowed members to care for their own community directly, which helped to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Volunteers in Nigeria have been trained to challenge dangerous misinformation and to provide help in contact tracing and testing.
Community Leaders Leading Testing
Local health officials noted that COVID-19 testing turnout in Kano was low. Misinformation had cheapened the impact of COVID-19, which led to some people denying its existence entirely. Health officials needed residents to submit to testing but they worried these beliefs would impede their goal. Community leaders in Kano motivated the members of their community to get tested for COVID-19. In June 2020, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) selected Zango and Dorayi wards for a state-wide sample collection. NCDC hopes that this sample collection will serve to Curb COVID-19 cases in the nation as a whole.
However, the positive response from the communities surprised health officials. The actions of local leaders, who explained to their communities why participating in testing is important, spurred the response. Involvement was spread across diverse demographics, with imams, women, youth leaders and family members encouraging testing. Alhaji Mohammed Rabiu Mahmud, a community leader in the Zango ward, reported success in the mobilization efforts. Volunteers collected 2,200 samples across the span of four days in Zango and Dorayi.
Educating the Public and Contact Tracing
Lagos has seen the largest number of COVID-19 cases, accounting for one-third of the nation’s cases as of December 2020. Misinformation makes the spread of the disease worse. Distrust between citizens, health authorities and the Nigerian government have impaired reduction efforts. Education has been vital in increasing public awareness about the dangers of COVID-19 and of the safest practices to follow.
To combat this, Nigeria developed programs to teach volunteers how to contact trace and how to combat harmful and misleading information. The volunteers in Nigeria express the value of COVID-19 reduction methods, encourage proper hygiene, social distancing and the use of face masks in their communities. Volunteers explained to contacts how to safely self-isolate and use personal protective equipment (PPE). The volunteers in Nigeria have access to resources at the local, state and federal levels. Nigeria hopes these volunteers will curb the spread of infection in the difficult-to-reach regions of small communities.
In the beginning months of the pandemic, Nigeria’s National Orientation Agency (NOA) headed the campaign to monitor COVID-19 transmission in the nation. NOA’s work focused heavily on tracking down those who have traveled abroad to keep communities safe. With a large task to tackle, UNICEF stepped in to provide support. UNICEF also aided in the training of contact tracers. The training programs taught how to identify potential cases and advised on how to provide psychosocial support to those struggling with self-isolation.
Rising to the Challenge
Volunteers in Nigeria are doing vital work that can be incredibly demanding. Contact tracers, for instance, are responsible for monitoring more than 60 people daily. To accomplish this challenging task, contact tracers built trust with many people to alleviate any doubts that they have and address any potential concerns people might have. Although challenging, contact tracers like Zarina Chidama embrace the work. She believes the necessary work is “a call to serve the people and the nation at large.”

Black residents in Michigan account for roughly 21% of the state's COVID-19 deaths despite being just 14% of the state's population. State officials want to decrease the number of deaths, so Michigan is relying on a formula recommended by the Centers for Disease Control called the Social Vulnerability Index to help guide its vaccine distribution. The index — ordinarily used by federal agencies dispensing aid after natural disasters — considers 15 different factors including minority groups, people living in multi-generational housing, age, and income.
But in recent weeks Republicans in one of the most conservative counties flanking metro Detroit and the state legislature have vocally opposed using the SVI.
Commissioners there passed a resolution calling on the governor and the state health department to rescind the SVI and replace it with a plan that "results in pro-rata uniform distribution to Michigan's most medically vulnerable population."
State Sen. Jim Runestad, a white Republican, was spitting mad about the same topic in a legislative hearing. He was incensed that residents age 65 and older in his majority white suburb of Detroit were still waiting on vaccines.
"This is the population. I don't care what race they are, I don't care what ethnicity they are, I don't care what language they speak. These are the people who are vulnerable to die. We should [be] worrying about getting this virus into the hands of the people who can preserve these people and not any other matrix," Runestad said.
In a floor speech later Runestad alleged the state was failing seniors in his district by using, "social engineering policies, not the likelihood of death."
State Sen. Erika Geiss, a Black Democrat who represents metro Detroit, fired back.
"When folks in my neck of the woods were dying and getting sick, folks in Brighton were saying, 'It's a hoax, it doesn't do anything, it doesn't matter, masks don't do anything.' And now you want to jump to the front of the line?" asked the senator.
Geiss and other Democrats argue stripping the SVI out of the state's vaccine allocation would be racist.
"It's absolutely unconscionable that while we are using a social vulnerability index to protect the very people who got the virus the most, who were the most vulnerable, who still are the most vulnerable, and it happens to be people of color. It happens to be people who are disabled. All of a sudden you want to be racially aware? It doesn't make any sense," Geiss said.
The Republican-controlled state senate eventually passed a bill barring the use of "race, gender, color, national origin, religion, sex, and socioeconomic status as factors in determining the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines." But the state House declined to pass the legislation, so the SVI remains in use.
Renee Canady heads the Michigan Public Health Institute. She compares public health professionals to firefighters — they run into the fire — wherever that fire may be.
"If this were affecting white men, we'd be running to that fire because it is our professional obligation. So, when we have seen repeated over and over again this pattern where disproportionately Black, Latino, Native American communities are suffering more it is our moral and professional responsibility to go there," Canady said.
The CDC reports that Black Americans are 1.9 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than white Americans, Latinos are 2.3 times more likely to die, and Native Americans are 2.4 times more likely to die.
That's partially why places like Wayne County, which includes Detroit, have received more vaccines than neighboring whiter, wealthier counties. Taking away the SVI would also de-prioritize some of the most impoverished counties in the state, all of which are rural and majority white.
The City of Detroit still trails the surrounding suburbs as roughly 11.5% of the age 16 and older population have received their first dose, but health officials in the city are trying to reach people at churches, senior centers, and via mass vaccination clinics.
In a parking garage under the TCF center in Detroit 4,700 residents are being vaccinated in one day. People in white protective suits and scrubs buzz around placing clipboards on car dashboards and jabbing people through car windows while industrial fans whir in the background.
Voletta Bonner is a Black 38-year-old teacher from Detroit. She said distributing the vaccine based only on age, or underlying health conditions doesn't make any sense to her.
"Everybody wasn't affected the same. So how can you then say, 'OK, well, now let's just open it up for everybody.' That's not fair. Nor is it smart," Bonner said. "If you want people to stop dying, then you need to address the people that are dying first. Not that you're never going to get the vaccine, but you can hold off and wait, because it's not affecting your community as harsh right now."
Eric Smith was getting his second shot. The Black 50-year-old letter carrier from Detroit argues that the SVI levels the playing field for some communities who haven't historically had access to the healthcare, so the Republican argument that the SVI shouldn't be used is a mistake.
"I would say to them, that they're on the wrong side of history, and they're gonna hurt a lot of people if they continue to fight that," Smith said.
Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University, agrees. Gostin says SVI is used to prioritize the most vulnerable — including racial minorities that have been disproportionately impacted.
"Nobody would say that it's that that we should outlaw CDC guidance that prioritizes nursing homes or over 75, the elderly. Why on earth would you do the same thing for equally disadvantaged, equally vulnerable populations that are protected through the social vulnerability index?" Gostin asked.

Ten million additional child marriages may occur before the end of the decade, threatening years of progress in reducing the practice, according to a new analysis released by UNICEF today.
COVID-19: A threat to progress against child marriage – released on International Women’s Day – warns that school closures, economic stress, service disruptions, pregnancy, and parental deaths due to the pandemic are putting the most vulnerable girls at increased risk of child marriage.
Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, 100 million girls were at risk of child marriage in the next decade, despite significant reductions in several countries in recent years. In the last ten years, the proportion of young women globally who were married as children had decreased by 15 per cent, from nearly 1 in 4 to 1 in 5, the equivalent of some 25 million marriages averted, a gain that is now under threat.
“COVID-19 has made an already difficult situation for millions of girls even worse. Shuttered schools, isolation from friends and support networks, and rising poverty have added fuel to a fire the world was already struggling to put out. But we can and we must extinguish child marriage,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “International Women’s Day is a key moment to remind ourselves of what these girls have to lose if we do not act urgently – their education, their health, and their futures.”
Girls who marry in childhood face immediate and lifelong consequences. They are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. Child marriage increases the risk of early and unplanned pregnancy, in turn increasing the risk of maternal complications and mortality. The practice can also isolate girls from family and friends and exclude them from participating in their communities, taking a heavy toll on their mental health and well-being.
COVID-19 is profoundly affecting the lives of girls. Pandemic-related travel restrictions and physical distancing make it difficult for girls to access the health care, social services and community support that protect them from child marriage, unwanted pregnancy and gender-based violence. As schools remain closed, girls are more likely to drop out of education and not return. Job losses and increased economic insecurity may also force families to marry their daughters to ease financial burdens.
Worldwide, an estimated 650 million girls and women alive today were married in childhood, with about half of those occurring in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Nigeria. To off-set the impacts of COVID-19 and end the practice by 2030 – the target set out in the Sustainable Development Goals – progress must be significantly accelerated.
“One year into the pandemic, immediate action is needed to mitigate the toll on girls and their families,” added Fore. “By reopening schools, implementing effective laws and policies, ensuring access to health and social services – including sexual and reproductive health services – and providing comprehensive social protection measures for families, we can significantly reduce a girl’s risk of having her childhood stolen through child marriage.”

National Primary Health Care Development Agency [NPHCDA] wey dey in charge of di vaccination campaign want any Nigeria or pipo wey dey live inside di west African kontri wey wan take di injection to register for dia online platform.
Remember say na only pipo wey dey 18 years and above go fit collect di vaccine across Nigeria, according to NPHCDA Executive Director, Faisal Shuaib,
How to register for Covid -19 vaccine in Nigeria
E get five different ways or strategy wey Nigerians fit use to get di Covid-19 vaccine, di agency say pesin fit get am through:
• Traditional Vaccination Campaign Roll-out.
• Electronic Self-Registration by Eligible Nigerians.
• Assisted Electronic Registration of Eligible Nigerians.
•Concomitant Vaccination alongside Electronic Registration.
•House-to-House Electronic Registration.
To make am easy and fast for pipo, di agency say make dem go register for dia website "NPHCDA" so dat dem go fit schedule dem to collect dia injection shots alias jabs.
As dem enta di website make dem click "Covid-19 Vaccination e-registration," den begin fill di form.
So far, di kontri don receive 3.9 million vaccines from Oxford/Astrazeneca through di Covax programme. Dis na first batch of di vaccine and dem still dey expect vaccines to enta di kontri ova time.

In the first week of March, Republican governors in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and West Virginia announced significant loosening of statewide pandemic restrictions like mask mandates and indoor capacity limits.
These states joined several others in loosening statewide coronavirus restrictions in early 2021.
In 2020, some states, like Georgia and Alaska, chose never to implement statewide mask mandates. Last September, Florida became one the largest states to roll back Covid capacity restrictions when Gov. Ron DeSantis reopened bars and restaurants to full capacity.

Dr. Faisal Shuaib, the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) says about 2.3 million Nigerians registered for the COVID-19 vaccinations in just less than 24 hours.
Citizens were able to sign through an online portal launched on Monday.
“I can tell you that there is a lot of excitement,” said Dr. Faisal during a television interview with Nigeria’s Channels Television. “I know some people have their concerns and we are trying but I want to give you an example of the enthusiasm that Nigerians are showing around wanting to take these vaccines, around midday on Monday when we launched the e-registration platform, in less than 24 hours, we already had up to 2.3m Nigerians who had registered, and that number continues to increase.”
The Executive Director explained that NPHCDA has already put plans in place for the rollout of the vaccine and is only waiting for the approval of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
Nigeria on Tuesday received close to four million COVAX AstraZeneca vaccines, making it the third country in the world to receive the free COVAX vaccines.

The United States reported a 3% decline in new cases of COVID-19 last week, a much smaller drop than in the previous six weeks, and health officials warned that progress against the global pandemic was stalling.
New cases fell as much as 25% in the week ended Feb. 7 and 23% in the week ended Feb. 21, before plateauing last week, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. state and county reports.
The country logged an average of over 68,000 new cases per day for the week ended Feb. 28, with deaths averaging at 2,055 per day. 
"I remain deeply concerned about a potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic. The latest CDC data continue to suggest that recent declines in cases have leveled off at a very high number," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Walensky said she was alarmed by some local governments rolling back restrictions on masks and social distancing just as more infectious variants of the virus are spreading. "We stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained," she said.
Twenty-nine out of 50 states reported more new infections last week compared to the previous seven days, whereas only seven states in the prior week reported weekly increases, according to the Reuters analysis.
New York had the highest number of new cases per 100,000 residents last week, followed by New Jersey and South Carolina.
As of Sunday, 15% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a vaccine and 7.5% has received two doses, according to the CDC. The country administered an average of 1.6 million shots per day last week.
Deaths linked to COVID-19 rose 5.5% in the week ended Feb. 28 to 14,387. Cumulatively, over 513,000 people have died from the virus in the United States, or one in every 636 residents.
The average number of COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals fell 15% to 52,000 last week, the lowest since early November, according to a Reuters tally.

WASHINGTON — Nearly 4 million doses of the newest COVID-19 vaccine will be shipped Sunday night, and will begin to be delivered to states for injections starting on Tuesday.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients announced that the entire stockpile of the newly approved single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will go out immediately. J&J will deliver about 16 million more doses by the end of March and 100 million total by the end of June.
Though the new shot is easier to administer and requires only one dose, the administration is not altering its distribution plans. Zients says, “We’re distributing the J&J vaccine as we do the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the chair of the White House equity task force, encouraged Americans to take the first dose available to them, regardless of manufacturer.
Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted overwhelmingly to recommend the vaccine for adults 18 years old and up. The ruling followed emergency clearance of the vaccine by U.S. regulators a day earlier.
Members of the group emphasized that all three vaccines now available in the U.S. are highly protective against the worst effects of the virus, including hospitalization and death.
Health officials are eager to have an easier-to-use vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 511,000 Americans and continues to mutate in troubling ways.
CDC recommendations are not binding on state governments or doctors, but are widely heeded by the medical community. The same CDC panel previously recommended use of the two vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna authorized in December.

With the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria, WHO is supporting government to leverage on the existing  Auto-Visual Acute Flaccid Paralysis Detection and Reporting (AVADAR) system to strengthen community-based surveillance for the disease. In 731 wards across eleven (11) COVID-19 high risk states, WHO is supporting engagement of more than 670 AVADAR informants to conduct house-to-house COVID-19 surveillance and reporting of suspected COVID-19 cases, sensitize and support contact tracing in the communities.
 So far, the informants have provided more than 85 000 households with COVID 19 preventive messages in Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Bauchi, Taraba, Borno and Yobe states.
“We are trusted by community members because we are integral to the communities where we work,” says Mustapha, a Kano State-based AVADAR informant. “We speak the same language and are known by our communities since the days of AFP surveillance for polio. Thus, engaging the communities, penetrating the households and getting the real facts about suspected COVID-19 cases in high risk wards is easy and achievable” stated Mustapha. 
Early detection and timely reporting of COVID-19 especially from rural and semi-urban communities is crucial to controlling the spread of COVID-19. AVADAR informants are trained on the use of mobile-based data collection to ensure real time reporting of suspected cases from communities. Hence, the AVADAR structure serves as the entry point for early detection and response to the outbreak. In addition, the informants are supporting contact tracing of cases and awareness creation using local languages and appropriate cultural mix of the communities. Therefore, they play key roles in increasing sensitivity of surveillance, tracing of contacts and reporting at the community levels. 
In Kano state, WHO-supported AVADAR informants raised the risk consciousness of more than 23,000 households. While in Sokoto, the informants have empowered more than 25,000 households with COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention strategies.
Speaking on the intervention, WHO Nigeria Representative/Head of Mission, Dr Kazadi Mulombo says that AVADAR is critical for community-based surveillance for any disease outbreaks and indeed handy for COVID-19 surveillance at the community levels. “Leveraging on AVADAR structure for strengthening community-based surveillance for COVID-19 was borne out of the successful experience of the system in detecting suspected cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) for polio surveillance”, says Dr. Mulombo. “This, therefore, justifies why WHO has deployed its AVADAR informants to penetrate communities, identify suspected cases of COVID and provide real-time reports to the appropriate authorities for targeted response.”
Prior to the deployment of AVADAR informants, WHO developed a standard case definition of COVID-19 in an audio format in major languages, strengthened the capacity of AVADAR informants on added responsibilities to support COVID-19 response in compliance to “Do no harm” and “duty of care” principles and equipped them with adequate IEC materials to facilitate sensitization, active case search and contact tracing. 
Nigeria is experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks. As of 24 February 2021, Nigeria has confirmed 153,842 cases of COVID-19 including 1,885 deaths. COVID-19 is preventable by social distancing, wearing of face masks and regular hand washing with soap under running water.

While the strong decline in new coronavirus infections across the country this month is an optimistic sign he expects to continue, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said the U.S. may never reach herd immunity against the virus.
“I don’t really think we’re ever going to reach full herd immunity,” Gottlieb told Margaret Brennan on CBS’ Face The Nation Sunday, when asked about vaccinating children, though he didn’t elaborate on why. “This isn’t going to be like measles or smallpox, which just sort of goes away. Covid is going to continue to circulate at a low level.”
While estimates vary for how many Americans need to receive a vaccine or have been previously infected for the country to reach herd immunity, the country’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said in December it could be as high as 90% of the population. 
Other studies have found herd immunity in the U.S. could be reached as early as May if vaccinations continue to pick up.
Gottlieb said he’s still “optimistic” about the immediate future, saying that rising vaccination rates and the fact that a third of the American public has already been infected with the coronavirus likely provides enough protection to continue to decrease the number of new infections, even if the population doesn’t reach full immunity against the virus.
On Thursday, the seven-day rolling average for new coronavirus infections had fallen by a staggering 43% in just two weeks.
“This has taken a tragic toll on the United States, but I think we should be optimistic in my view,” Gottlieb said.
Some experts predict that if the U.S. never achieves full immunity, Covid-19 may become a seasonal virus, as reinfection of coronaviruses is very common. The number of new daily coronavirus infections and coronavirus patients in hospitals began to slump this month after the country recorded rising cases that peaked in January, a phenomenon some experts have blamed on people traveling and meeting with groups outside of their households for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 28 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for coronavirus, making up roughly a quarter of the world’s confirmed cases.

The Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi, has disclosed that they are working with the PTF and other agencies like GAVI and the Africa CDC to ensure Nigeria gets vaccines before the end of February.
The Governor revealed this in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday evening.
“All I can say is that we (Governors) are working with the PTF, working with GAVI and a number of other institutions, as well as the African Centre for Disease Control to enable Nigeria get as much vaccines as possible from the end of February,” he said.
“We have to wait to see if we succeed with that, but that effort is ongoing, and i must commend the PTF for the negotiatons.
“We just have to wait, I am not happy the vaccines are not here yet, we are making progress” he added.
What you should know 
Fayemi had earlier revealed that about 80 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines will soon be made available in the country, to immunize 40% of the Nigerian population this year.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, had earlier announced that the first batch of 15 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, which is from AstraZeneca under the COVAX programme, is expected to be available from February.
This is coming after the African Union (AU)’s African Vaccines had allocated 42 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Nigeria.
Also, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, said the Nigerian government expected over 41 million vaccines from the African Union before the end of April, as it also expected to source vaccines from India and Russia.
The Federal Government had earlier announced that Nigeria was about to receive 1.4 million doses of vaccines donated by MTN.
The UK Government has revealed that the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) had announced that Nigeria would be one of the first countries to receive 16 million free doses of Covid-19 vaccines through the COVAX Global Vaccines Facility.
BUA Group revealed that it had purchased a million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for Nigeria, with delivery to be made soon.

Although not everyone can get the vaccine, I believe that the vaccine has a great effect on alleviating Covid-19.

Vaccinating communities of color, which have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, has been a focus for both the Biden administration and many local governments.
But federal data show that despite guidelines from the National Institutes of Health recommending more diversity in clinical trials, people of color are largely underrepresented.
A study released Friday in JAMA Network Open suggests that the disparities started long before the pandemic magnified existing inequities.
According to the report, issued by researchers at Harvard Medical School, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, 78 percent of all participants in clinical trials dating to 2011 were white. Latinos, who are 18 percent of the U.S. population, were 12 percent of participants and Black Americans, who are more than 12 percent of the total population, accounted for 11 percent of participants.
Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander participants were equitably represented in vaccine trials compared to the total population, the authors found.
"The Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating impact, particularly on BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] communities and older adults, is a painful reminder of the health disparities in our country," said a co-author, Dr. Steve Pergam, an associate professor in the vaccine and infectious disease division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "This collaborative work highlights a problem that's plagued the scientific community for too long — inadequate representation in clinical trials."
Pergam and his colleagues set out to learn whether enrollment in clinical trials accurately reflected the vast diversity of people in the U.S. Looking at the last decade, the team found that white adult women were overrepresented in clinical trials, while people of color and those over age 65 were underrepresented.
The team's findings reflect a broader, ongoing issue exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Older white women are being vaccinated at a higher rate than Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC report found that among the 13 million people who received first doses of a vaccine when they became available in mid-December, more than 60 percent were women, and more than 50 percent were over 50.
Recent CDC numbers show that Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths are more likely to occur among Native Americans, Latinos and Blacks.
"It's only fair that if we're asking people to participate in this effort, it's our obligation to make sure that those trials are reflective of who those vaccines should go to," Pergam said. "It's even more important when it comes to Covid-19, where there is a tremendous amount of disparity in terms of who gets the disease and who's dying from the disease."
millions of people. In California, where Latinos are about 40 percent of the population, only 16 percent of those vaccinated so far are Latino, according to data released last week by California public health officials. Black residents are about 7 percent of the population but just 3 percent of those who have been vaccinated.
When looking at vaccination levels county by county, the numbers are even starker. In Los Angeles County, Latinos make up half of all residents but only 23 percent of vaccinations. And 4 percent of those who have been vaccinated are Black, even though they are 8 percent of county residents.
According to the CDC, race and ethnicity are risk markers for other underlying conditions that affect overall health outcomes, including access to medical care and exposure to the coronavirus at work. Yet Black and Latino people also report higher levels of vaccination hesitance and distrust compared to white Americans, according to a recent survey by the COVID Collaborative, a coalition of national experts on health, education and the economy.
One way to overcome hesitance is to establish trust between medical professionals and the communities they serve, said Michele Andrasik, a staff scientist in Fred Hutchinson's vaccine and infectious disease division.
"Clinical trials are a way to open the door to a lot of people and really start a positive relationship with research, with health care systems," she said. "It can really open up possibilities and change someone's view of the medical infrastructure."
Andrasik, who co-authored the JAMA study with Pergam, worked on recent coronavirus clinical trials for Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. While the Moderna Phase 3 trial appeared to be more representative of the greater population — 37 percent of participants reflected communities of color, and more than 80 percent worked in jobs that posed risks of infection — the other trials were not.
In the AstraZeneca trial, more than 80 percent of participants were white.
The number was slightly lower in the Johnson & Johnson Phase 3 trial, in which 74 percent of participants were white.
"Covid has opened peoples' eyes and ears to long-term inequities," Andrasik said. "We are nowhere near having the type of representation that we need to have to ensure trustworthiness of our institutions."

States are rolling back Covid-19 restrictions as new cases trend down from record highs across the country. But experts warn it might be too much too soon as variants pose an increased risk and the pandemic — almost at the one year mark in the U.S. — is far from over.

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, lifted the state’s partial mask mandate on Friday. She also said businesses no longer have to limit the number of customers or enforce social distancing, and no limits remain on the size of public gatherings. The Des Moines Register's editorial board called the move “inexplicable and irresponsible.”

Reynolds isn’t acting alone. Democratic and Republican governors alike have been loosening restrictions. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, announced Monday that New York City will allow indoor dining beginning on Friday, a few days earlier than originally planned, and middle schools will reopen for in-person instruction on Feb 25. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, said restaurants are allowed to operate at 40 percent capacity as of Monday, citing a decline in hospitalizations as part of his reasoning.

The moves to eliminate virus-related restrictions come as the most-recent seven-day average for new cases in the U.S. is 119,509 for the past week, according to an NBC News analysis. The last time that figure was that low was Nov. 9, near the beginning of the latest surge. The current new case numbers still far surpass the spring and summer highs.

“I have some concern it’s premature” to loosen restrictions, said Dr. Justin Lessler, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Lessler said the very restrictions in place are what is allowing Covid-19 infection rates to decline.

“When we remove interventions, we frequently see resurgences,” he said, advising caution if states want to see continued decline. “When new variants come along, the stepping back that may have been OK before is not OK anymore because of the more transmissible variants.”

The CDC has reported fewer than 700 cases of the various strains of Covid-19 that have entered the country after first being identified in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil. Lessler said that number is “very much the tip of the iceberg” and hardly portrays the scope of their spread.
“The variants are here and circulating,” said Dr. Jennifer Lighter, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at NYU Langone Health in New York.

While much remains unknown about how the variants will spread and affect the U.S., their presence is undeniable.

Lighter said the U.S. isn’t doing enough “surveillance protecting” or sequencing to test how many of the recent positive cases are coming from the new strains. Still, she said, the surge that some anticipated from more transmissible variants has yet to materialize.

Reversing a mask mandate, she said, makes no sense, but moves like Los Angeles County’s to reopen outdoor dining at the end of January are sensible when being outdoors decreases the risk associated with contracting the virus.

To stay ahead of the variants, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday that it is crucial that people get both doses of the vaccine.

The boost from the second dose gives a "greater breadth of response," said Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, meaning it can protect against the "wild type" of coronavirus circulating, including the variants.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded an Article IV consultation with the Nigerian government and has welcomed the notable reforms undertaken in the fiscal sector, including the removal of a fuel subsidy and steps to implement cost-reflective tariff increases in the power sector.
The IMF states that Nigeria’s economy had been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. Following a sharp drop in oil prices and capital outflows, real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have contracted by 3.2% in 2020.
The country’s headline inflation rose to 14.9% in November 2020, which marked a 33-month high, reflecting core and food inflation increases emanating from supply shortages due to the lockdown effected to curb infections, alongside the land-border closure and continued import restrictions.
The unemployment rate reached 27% in the second quarter of the year, with youth unemployment at 41%.
The Nigerian authorities acted swiftly to adopt a pandemic-related support package equivalent to 0.3% of GDP in the 2020 revised federal Budget despite limited fiscal space.
External vulnerabilities owing to lower oil prices and weak global demand have increased, with the current account remaining in deficit in the first half of 2021.
In April 2020, Nigeria received IMF emergency financial assistance of $3.5-billion under the Rapid Financing Instrument to help cushion the impact of the pandemic.
The IMF notes that socioeconomic conditions have deteriorated, with rising food inflation, elevated youth unemployment and mass protests in October last year, and says surveys show worsening food insecurity with a significant impact on the vulnerable.
Risks are tilted to the downside and include the resurgence of the pandemic, security situation and unfavourable external environment.
Capital outflow risks arise from the record-low domestic interest rates and large foreign holdings of domestic securities.
On the upside, recovering oil prices and the completion of the Dangote oil refinery could catalyse more domestic crude oil production and boost growth.
The IMF executive directors agreed with the thrust of the staff appraisal. They commended the authorities for the measures taken to address the health and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic which have exacerbated pre-existing weaknesses.
Looking ahead, the IMF’s directors emphasised the need for urgent policy adjustment in Nigeria and more fundamental reforms to sustain macroeconomic stability and lift growth and employment.
They further stressed the need for significant revenue mobilisation to reduce fiscal sustainability risks, relying initially on progressive and efficiency-enhancing measures with higher tax rates awaiting a more sustained economic recovery.
They also highlighted the need for improved social safety nets to cushion potential negative impacts on the poor.
The IMF directors noted that multiple rates, limited flexibility and foreign exchange shortages are posing challenges. They recommended a gradual and multi-step approach to establishing a unified and clear exchange rate regime with the near-term focus on allowing for greater flexibility and removing the payments backlog.
Further, the IMF observed that the accommodative monetary stance remains appropriate in the near term, although tightening may be warranted if balance of payments or inflationary pressures were to increase.
In the medium term, the monetary policy operational framework should be reformed and the central bank financing of the budget deficit phased out in order to reduce inflation.
While welcoming the resilience of the banking sector, the IMF directors also called for continued vigilance to contain financial stability risks. They noted that Covid-19 debt relief measures for bank clients should remain time-bound and limited to those with good pre-crisis fundamentals.
Lastly, the directors welcomed recent progress in structural reforms and called for continued reforms aimed at promoting economic diversification and reducing the dependence on oil and increasing employment.
In addition, they encouraged strengthening governance and anticorruption frameworks, including compliance with Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism measures.
The directors also welcomed the country’s ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Area and underscored that implementing trade-enabling reforms remains critical to rejuvenate growth.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday it “will take years” to get the country’s coronavirus-ravaged economy back on track if Congress fails to enact President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package, rejecting Republican claims that it is too big. 
Yellen told CNN that with passage of the relief deal, the economy could return to what is considered full employment in the world’s biggest economy by 2022, with a 4% jobless rate compared to the 6.3% rate in January. 
“There’s tremendous suffering in the country,” she said, with nearly 10 million jobs lost in the coronavirus pandemic and a reported 4 million workers who have given up looking for new work. The government reported Friday that the United States added only 49,000 jobs in January. 
Both chambers of Congress, each narrowly controlled by Biden’s Democratic Party, voted last week for budget rules that, if necessary, would allow Democrats to push through the new spending on party-line votes in both the Senate and House of Representatives without any support from Republican lawmakers. 
Biden told reporters Friday, “I’ve told both Republicans and Democrats, that’s my preference, to work together.” 
“But if I have to choose between getting help right now to Americans who are hurting so badly and getting bogged down in a lengthy negotiation or compromising on a bill that’s up to the crisis, that’s an easy choice,” the president said. “I’m going to help the American people who are hurting now.” 
Based on the country’s slow recovery from the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, Biden said, “One thing we learned is, you know, we can’t do too much here. We can do too little. We can do too little and sputter.” 
Top White House advisers are hoping to pass the Biden proposal by the first week of March, ahead of a March 15 deadline when current $300-a-week extra payments from the national government to jobless workers on top of less generous state benefits are set to expire. Biden wants to increase the extra federal payments to $400 a week through September. 
A group of 10 Republican senators met with Biden at the White House last week, lobbying to keep the payments at $300 a week but ending them in June.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Court of International Trade upheld former President Donald Trump’s “Section 232” U.S. national security tariffs on steel imports on Thursday, denying a steel importer’s challenge to the duties.
A three judge panel at the New York-based federal court, which hears challenges to trade actions under U.S. laws, found that the Commerce Department and Trump properly applied a Cold War-era trade law in imposing the tariffs.
Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum from most countries in 2018, arguing that these protections were necessary for U.S. national security to maintain healthy domestic production.
He invoked Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1962, which allows the president to restrict imports of goods critical to national security.
Universal Steel Products Inc, a New Jersey steel importer, had argued before the court that the legal process used to imposed the tariffs was “procedurally deficient” and did not specify an expiration date, there was no “impending threat” to U.S. national security and Trump exceeded his discretionary authority in applying the tariffs to steel and aluminum, which are commodity products.
The panel of judges disagreed, writing here that Section 232 "grants the president latitude in evaluating whether imports threaten the national security. The statutory language makes clear that the list of factors to be considered in determining whether a threat exists is nonexclusive."
The American Iron and Steel Institute, which represents steelmakers, industry groups welcomed the decision. It urged current U.S. President Joe Biden to maintain them to protect the industry from a flood of excess global production, largely centered in China, that has only grown since the tariffs were first imposed.
“President Biden has acknowledged importance of addressing global overcapacity and I think he understands that these tariffs are important for national security,” said Kevin Dempsey, AISI president.
Biden signaled that he is likely to keep the tariffs in place on Monday, when he reversed a tariff exemption on aluminum imports from the United Arab Emirates that had been granted by Trump on his last day in office.
Maintaining tariffs on UAE aluminum is “necessary and appropriate in light of our national security interests” Biden said in a proclamation.

Say vaccine to cover 40% of the population Say approach must shift from emergency response to strengthening the resilience and sustainability of the health system Say by October 2020, testing capacity has expanded to over 70 laboratories across the 36 States, FCT By Henry Umoru – Abuja The thirty- six State Governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF have disclosed that the country in this year, 2021, will get a total delivery of 80 million doses of COVID- 19 vaccines to cover 40% of the nation’s population, while another 60 million doses are being planned for next year, 2022.
Disclosing this on Tuesday, at Chatham House London, the UK at a Virtual event, Chairman of the NGF and Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi said that beyond the procurement of Vaccines by the Federal government, the State Governors are also strong proponents of the utilisation of public-private partnerships in vaccines procurement as a means of closing the gap between what is available and what is necessary to achieve immunity. Fayemi spoke on the ” Role of Nigeria’s State Governments in Recovery: Responses to COVID- 19 Linked Challenge” The governors have however urged the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency adopt an approach that would make it move away from emergency response to strengthening the resilience and sustainability of the health system.

White women over age 50 accounted for a majority of the first Covid-19 vaccinations administered in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday.
While most health care workers and those living in long-term care facilities are women — the groups originally recommended to be first in line to get the vaccination — the report highlights racial and ethnic inequities among those most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
People at highest risk of infection and the most dangerous outcomes are Blacks, Native Americans or Alaska Natives and Hispanics.
Among the nearly 13 million people who received at least the first dose of vaccine between mid-December and mid-January, 63 percent were women and 55 percent were over age 50, the CDC report found.
Information on race was only available for about half of those vaccination recipients. Among those, 60 percent were white. It is unclear why the information is missing, but is likely due to a lack of demographics protocol.
"The people giving out the vaccine are not recording the race and ethnicity data," said Dr. Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. "People need to realize that this is serious. We might need a mandatory field to make sure that it is filled out."
Indeed, the authors of the report wrote, "more complete reporting of race and ethnicity data at the provider and jurisdictional levels is critical to ensure rapid detection of and response to potential disparities in Covid-19 vaccination."
Addressing those disparities has become an "urgent priority" in the Biden administration.
"Achieving equity requires an understanding of the disparities that exist," Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the administration's Covid-19 health equity task force, said during a White House briefing Monday.
"As of Jan. 30, we're missing 47 percent of the race of ethnicity data on vaccination," she said. "Let me be clear, we cannot ensure an equitable vaccination program without data to guide us."
Part of the problem is lack of access and resources.
"Some of these communities that we're most concerned about being hospitalized and dying also have less access to high speed internet" to make online vaccine appointments, said Dr. Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Morita, who also served as a former health commissioner at the Chicago Department of Public Health, added that those communities may also be limited in transportation options necessary to get to vaccination sites.
"It's really helping them to access it and making sure that those clinics are located in the right places," she said. Without appropriate data to determine whether the right populations are being reached, "you're really kind of guessing."