₦airaland Forum

Mobile transactions in Nigeria (mobile & USSD) surged by 82.6% in 2020 to stand at 1.69 billion compared to 928.86 million recorded in the previous year. This is according to the 2020 instant payment annual statistics, recently released by the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS).
The report also revealed that 78% of total instant payments carried out in Nigeria in 2020 were done through the use of mobile devices.
The breakdown of the data showed that while mobile payment retained its position as the most preferred channel, accounting for 43% of the total transactions in 2020, USSD followed closely at 762.19 million transactions, accounting for 35% of the total recorded in the year.
The agency attributed the growth to the move by Nigerians away from physical channels, and the closure of most bank branches in the country during the heat of the covid-19 pandemic.
In terms of Year-on-Year performance, the volume of mobile transactions in the country grew from 506.16 million in 2019 to 933.66 million in 2020, indicating a surge of about 84.5% YoY. Also, the volume of USSD transactions grew from 422.7 million to 762.19 million, advancing by about 80.3% YoY.

Efforts to curb the spread of mutating variants of the Covid-19 virus from infecting the population has seen a change in passengers’ facilitation procedures across Nigerian airports, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has disclosed.
The new order abolished the situation hereby cars are allowed to park in front of airport terminals to pick arriving passengers but will now see inbound passengers walk to designated car parks to board their vehicles to exit the airports.
The General Manager in charge of Public Affairs for FAAN, Mrs Henrietta Yakubu told journalists that the latest arrangement became imperative as parts of its advisory notes to passengers, drivers and other airport users, particularly those at the General Aviation Terminal, Lagos, to always comply with all laid down protocols on Covid-19 to ensure safety of all airport users.
Henrietta emphasized that in line with the federal government protocols, arriving passengers are to walk down to designated car parks to board their vehicles as no driver is henceforth permitted to pick up arriving passenger(s) at the frontage of the terminals.
“All drivers must park and wait inside the car parks, while arriving passengers walk down to the car parks to board their vehicles.”
According to her, “Departing passengers and drivers are only allowed to drop-off passengers in front of the terminals. They are not permitted to wait for any reason after dropping their passengers; it is only a “Drop Off” zone.
We would like to advise all our esteemed customers to strictly adhere to these rules, to ease facilitation and enhance safety of all airport users.”

The bilateral trade relations between Nigeria and France which stood at $4.5 billion in 2019, shrank to $2.3 billion in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
French Minister in charge of Foreign Trade and Attractiveness, Franck Riester, made the disclosure while briefing newsmen at the end of a meeting with members of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) on Tuesday.
He said: “France is a major financial partner for Nigeria, being the second bilateral creditor of Nigeria after China, thanks to the involvement of French Development Agency (AFD). AFD engaged more than €2 billion in the last 10 years in over 35 development projects.
“France will also dedicate financing and capacity building in the health sector in some Nigerian states,” the minister stated.
Riester added that France is also one of the major partners of the COVAX initiative, noting that last February, French President, Emmanuel Macron warned that the failure to share vaccines would entrench global inequality.
According to him, the president proposed sending part of the coronavirus vaccine supplies owned by European countries, the United States, China and Russia to developing countries.
The minister explained that there are about 100 French companies presently in Nigeria investing in the health, energy, environment logistics and other secrors, and with over 10,000 employees.
Riester disclosed that a €3.5 billion “Choose Africa” conference on President Emmanuel Macron initiative will be opened in Lagos, to support start-ups and SMEs in Africa, which Nigerian entrepreneurs have already benefited from.
Riester who is on a two-day visit in Nigeria, said the visit followed on the priorities set by French President Macron during his official visit to Nigeria in July 2018 and his willingness to change the narrative of the relations between Africa and France.
The French Minister will have several official meetings in Abuja and Lagos, to stress the importance of the bilateral economic relation.
Plateau State governor, Simon Lalong who stood in for Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said the meeting was fruitful, adding that the minister would meet with business community and other stakeholders Wednesday.

Duke University in North Carolina has announced that it will require students to have a COVID-19 vaccine when they return this fall. And the list of campuses with such policies is growing.
Rutgers University in New Jersey was the first, and since then more than a dozen residential colleges have followed. The University of Notre Dame; two Ivy League universities, Brown and Cornell; and Northeastern University in Massachusetts are among those requiring the vaccine for the fall. Cleveland State University will do so for all students living on campus.
As vaccines become more widely available, it's likely that many more colleges will add their own mandates. Thirty-seven states are now vaccinating all people ages 16 and up, and by April 19, all states in the U.S. will join them.
"Vaccinations are an important tool for making the fall semester safe," says Antonio Calcado, who leads Rutgers' COVID-19 task force. "We felt that just simply encouraging would not have the same effect as a requirement."
Colleges have struggled to control outbreaks on campus. Residential campuses are social spaces where viruses can (and did) spread through dorms, off-campus housing and parties. And campuses aren't insulated from their communities; there is research to suggest that spread of the coronavirus among students led to nearby deaths in nursing homes.

The Nigeria government has extended the work from home directive to civil servants from Grade Level 12 and below until the end of April.
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), Folasade Yemi-Esan, disclosed this in a circular dated April 7 and obtained by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday.
Officers on this level were initially directed to continue working from home till the end of March 2021 as part of measures to sustain the downward trend of reported cases of COVID-19 in the country.
“Further to that directive and following the advice of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, especially with regard to maintaining the reduction of reported cases, the earlier work-from home directive is hereby extended till the end of April, 2021,” the official said in the latest statement.
Mrs Yemi-Esan emphasised the need for all public servants to continue to ensure strict compliance with the existing guidelines on the prevention and spread of the pandemic.
She urge all Permanent Secretaries and Chief Executive Officers to bring the content of the circular to all concerned and ensure strict compliance.
As of Thursday evening, Nigeria has recorded 163,581 COVID-19 cases and 2,058 deaths, according to an update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Millions of Nigerians are groaning as industrial action declared by doctors in public hospitals, courts workers and polytechnics lecturers across the country take its tolls.
The various actions by resident doctors under the aegis of Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) which entered its sixth day yesterday, the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) and the Academic Staff Union of Union (ASUP) were launched to compel the Federal Government to meet their demands which include improved condition of services. The strikes have further compounded Nigeria’s labour sector crisis.
The strike by ASUP has disrupted ongoing examinations while students expressed frustration of having to be forced to return home.
Last minute effort by the Federal Government to prevent  the union from going ahead with the industrial action hit the rock, yesterday.
President of ASUP, Mr Anderson Ezeibe, said the  strike was ordered to address the sorry state of public polytechnics, monotechnics and the general decay in the sub-sector. He listed other complaints to include non-release of the 10-month arrears of minimum wage owed members in federal polytechnics, non-implementation of minimum wage in several state-owned polytechnics, non-reconstitution of governing councils leading to disruption of administrative processes in polytechnics since May 2020 and victimisation of officials of the union in some state-owned polytechnics.
Ezeibe said reports from 92 states and federal polytechnics indicated full compliance as only non-academic members were at their duty post.

The government should listen to the opinions of the people. As a special industry, they have created a lot of benefits for the country and the people. We should learn to respect their wishes and demands.

On March 18, 2021, the Biden administration extended ongoing travel restrictions along the United States-Canada and United States-Mexico land ports of entry through April 21, 2021. The restrictions, which were previously set to expire on March 21, 2021, prohibit all “non-essential” travel from entering the United States to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These restrictions have been in effect since March 21, 2020.
As outlined in the latest update published in the Federal Register, the notice of restrictions “does not apply to air, freight rail, or sea travel” between the United States and Canada and/or Mexico. [Emphasis added.] However, the border restrictions are still in force for “passenger rail, passenger ferry travel, and pleasure boat travel” between the United States and Canada and/or Mexico. Most importantly, travel for “work” is considered “essential” for the purposes of the restrictions.

Many countries are now gradually bringing their domestic epidemics under control, but the US is still very serious, and there is no difference between Biden and Trump in this respect.

In the first week of March, governors in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Arizona, West Virginia and Connecticut 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.
As of March 24, the number of Covid-19 cases in the United States since the start of the pandemic was over 30 million, according to an NBC News' count. More than 546,000 people have died across the U.S.

On Monday President Joe Biden urged state politicians once again to make mask-wearing obligatory in public places.
He also promised that by mid-April 90% of American adults would be able to receive a vaccine.
The US has recorded around 60,000 new cases daily for the past week.
The director of the US public health agency, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was speaking at a White House briefing when she said she was going to go "off script".
"I'm going to reflect on the reoccurring feeling I have of impending doom," Dr Rochelle Walensky said, adding "we have so much reason for hope, but right now I'm scared".
New Covid cases have reached around 60,000 a day in the past week, a rise of around 7%, according to the CDC.
Dr Walensky said she did not want the US to face another spike in cases and deaths as has happened in many European countries.
Cases have risen particularly quickly in Michigan and the country's north-east, including Connecticut and New York, according to the New York Times.
Speaking in a TV address from the White House President Biden issued a plea to state governors to re-introduce laws that require citizens to wear masks.
Coronavirus rules in the US vary state-by-state, with some governors ordering much stricter restrictions than others.
"If we let our guard down now, we can see the virus getting worse, not better," Mr Biden said.
He also spoke about the US success in its national vaccination programme and suggested it was ahead of schedule.
By 19 April, 90% of American adults will be eligible for a vaccine and will have access to a vaccination centre five miles from their homes, he promised.
Mr Biden has said all American adults will be able to register for a dose by 1 May.
More than one in five adults and nearly Americans aged over-65 are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
The rules on who is eligible vary by state, but in most places health care workers have long been able to get a jab, followed by the over-65s. In some states, including Georgia and Arizona, the over-16s are now able to get a jab, according to the New York Times.
Mr Biden urged Americans in the meantime to adhere to guidelines on social distancing and face coverings.
"Fight to the finish," he said. "Don't let up now."

Lagos, Nigeria – In a small row of five ordinary-looking apartment blocks housing residential medical staff and their families at the College of Medicine, Idi-Araba, is Flat Number 24. Set in a leafy suburb of Lagos, the five blocks face a row of detached houses, the buildings forming a quadrangle that serves as a play area for children.
Although neither lives there these days, it still holds good memories for Dr Alero Ann Roberts, 60, and Dr Kofo Odusote, 73, and they break into smiles and giggles talking about it. The women have fond recollections of the time they spent together in that flat.
On the second floor of one of the blocks, it was home to Kofo, her husband, Professor Kayode Odusote, and their three sons.
It is also where Kofo and Alero met for the first time in the early 1980s, when Kofo’s younger brother, Seyi, introduced the woman he would later marry to his family.
Over the following decade, the two women would spend long hours in that busy, hectic two-bedroom flat helping each other navigate the demands of their medical careers, marriages and children.
“It became the ‘family hub’,” Alero explains. “I was a resident doctor but I lived off-campus and was on call every night. Aunty Kofo’s support was what kept me going.”
At the time, Kofo was working as a registrar in the Paediatrics Unit at the College of Medicine, but says, “Alero was a young wife and a new mother just starting out on her career … so I offered to help out with my young nephew.”
These days, Alero has become something of a public figure in Nigeria with her reassuring appearances on the popular news station, Channels TV, in her thick-rimmed glasses, lipstick and doctor’s coat. She has an approachable, yet no-nonsense air about her when she speaks and it is easy to see why viewers love her when she gives updates and guidance about COVID-19.
A senior lecturer in public health at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Alero also works as a public health consultant at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Kofo, who has retired from medicine, now runs a care home for the elderly in Lagos.
Today, the two women are sitting side by side on a dark green leather sofa in Kofo’s home on Lagos Island, and their excitement and sisterly bond are palpable as they reminisce about their early days together.
The older woman is dressed in a patterned, white Ankara long gown and sports a well-coiffured hair-do; while her younger sister-in-law who has her long, slightly greyed hair woven into plaits, wears a black T-shirt and slacks.
There are nearly 14 years between them and both are now grandmothers.
“I am the eldest of four girls and ‘Aunty Kofo’ was the perfect big sister for me,” Alero explains. “Everything I do, I run through the prism of ‘What will Aunty Kofo say?’ She has had a great influence on my life.
“It all comes down to affirmation; open and honest affirmation at all times.” Smiling knowingly at her sister-in-law, she adds: “But if you do something wrong she will call you and let you know!”

Results from AstraZeneca's recent Covid-19 vaccine trial "may have included outdated information" that "provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data," a federal health institute said early Tuesday.
The unusual statement, issued just after midnight by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), came hours after AstraZeneca announced encouraging results from its Phase 3 trial based in the United States.
Interim analysis of the trial showed the vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University was safe and 100 percent effective in stopping severe and fatal cases of Covid-19, AstraZeneca said. After months of questions about the shot's safety and efficacy, these results were seen as a boost and the first step toward it being approved in the U.S., perhaps as early as April.
But later Monday, the NIAID said it was notified by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), a panel of independent experts that reviews safety and efficacy data for vaccines in the United States, about a "concern" relating to the data included in AstraZeneca's trial.
"We urge the company to work with the DSMB to review the efficacy data and ensure the most accurate, up-to-date efficacy data be made public as quickly as possible," the NIAID said.
In response, AstraZeneca said in a statement that the Phase 3 trial results released Monday were based on data with a cut-off point of Feb. 17. It said it would "immediately engage" with the DSMB and share the most up-to-date efficacy data within 48 hours.
The NIAID did not provide any more information on how the outdated and incomplete data might affect the trial results for this vaccine, which has been taken by tens of millions of people around the world and approved or given emergency approval in more than 70 countries. The agency did not suggest this shot is anything other than safe and effective against Covid-19.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID and President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that it was "really what you call an unforced error because the fact is this is very likely a very good vaccine."
He added that "this kind of thing does ... nothing but really cast some doubt about the vaccines and maybe contribute to the hesitancy."
The situation is "a total head scratcher," tweeted Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.
Like other experts, he noted that it was rare and perhaps even unprecedented to see such an open disagreement between a drugmaker and the country hosting and funding the clinical trial.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken a key step toward extending an order aimed at preventing evictions during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. The CDC order is currently set to expire in less than 2 weeks.
Housing advocates have warned for months that allowing this protection for renters to lapse would spark a tsunami of evictions, putting upward of 1 million people out of their homes.
The CDC has now sent a proposal to the Office of Management and Budget for regulatory review. The CDC hasn't responded to a request for comment. And the listing on the OMB site doesn't indicate how long the CDC might extend the eviction order for. The move doesn't mean absolutely that the the agency will extend the order. But that now appears likely.
"It means that CDC likely intends to extend and perhaps improve the CDC order on evictions," says Shamus Roller, the executive director of the National Housing Law Project. He says the order is preventing many evictions but that it has loopholes and needs to be strengthened.
Nearly 10 million Americans are behind on their rent payments, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In the last two COVID-19 relief bills, Congress has approved more than $50 billion for rental assistance.
But the state and local application portals that the money will flow through are only just now opening up to take applications. So the vast majority of people who need the help won't have gotten it by the end of March when the CDC eviction order expires. That's one reason advocates have been calling on the CDC to extend the order.
Studies have found that evictions spread COVID-19 and result in more deaths from the disease since people are forced into more crowded living situations and often double up with other families or family members. That's the reason the CDC issued its order back in September to try to contain the outbreak.
Landlord groups have applauded the rental assistance money from Congress, but they are opposed to the CDC extending its order, saying landlords need to have the right to move forward with eviction cases a year into the pandemic.

Let us all take the vaccine to protect ourselves. Our President and Vice President have taken it, so let's follow their good examples.
We should all strive to benefit from the 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that Nigeria has so far secured from India, courtesy of the Covax Facility, which arrived on March 2. This is part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to Nigeria in batches.
Yesterday, I had my first jab of the AstraZeneca vaccine in one of the general hospitals in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It was easy; no crowd, no ceremony, no fuss and no pain. I had expected a huge crowd, as all persons of a certain age and with brains between their ears know that it is important for their survival that they take it as soon as possible. I assume all the conspiracy theories against COVID-19 vaccinations have been so discredited that everyone would be eager to have the jab. I asked how many people have had the jab in the FCT and the response was that by end of work on Wednesday, March 17, only 711 people have had it. This is shockingly low. This might be because residents of the capital city did not see their minister or minister of state take it on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Silly me, no Nigerian believes what ministers do or say, so that cannot be the reason. In Lagos, where their governor took the vaccine on TV, the State Government reported that 12,720 people got vaccinated within the first 48 hours, implying that people there do not want to die from COVID-19.
At the national level, 2.3 million Nigerians registered their preparedness to receive the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine jab within 48 hours of the registration of the easy to use e-portal at the beginning of March, signalling some enthusiasm. A survey of 1,100 Nigerians between October and November 2020 by the Edelman Trust Barometer 2021 found that vaccine hesitancy was a high of 59 per cent in Nigeria. Reluctance is 64 per cent globally. Hesitancy, combined with a low trust environment, where only 24 per cent of Nigerians believe in government and trust overall is at 49 per cent (ThisDay, 18/3/2021) is the situation here. No vaccine in human history has had to contend with massive disinformation and conspiracy theories as that of COVID-19. The vaccine, we were told, would be designed (the stories were manufactured before the vaccines) to implant a chip to take over our genes and turn us into robots for Mr. Bill Gates, make Africans infertile, kill us through blood clots, ensure we serve the mission of the devil and hurry us to hell. Maybe it is a wonder that some people are ready to take the vaccine. Having carefully studied all the disinformation and found them to be false, be like me, take it when it is your turn.We should all strive to benefit from the 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that Nigeria has so far secured from India, courtesy of the Covax Facility, which arrived on March 2. This is part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to Nigeria in batches. The PTF understood the public's genuine scepticism about the new vaccine and their resistance and undertook the daunting task of reversing such perceptions many weeks before its arrival in the country. It has been messaging constantly to counter the negative perceptions of the vaccine's safety and efficacy, and to inform that it has no adverse effect on recipients. The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, which has direct responsibility for administering the vaccine has also been engaged in sensitisation and awareness programmes to correct negative perceptions. At the beginning of the second week of March, most States had received their doses. The plan is to ensure the vaccination of about 70 per cent of the population over the next two years, starting with health and frontline workers, and people over sixty years of age.


The World Health Organisation (WHO) has responded swiftly to the matter, saying the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its possible risks. Yesterday, the European Medicines Agency gave its ruling that they have not found any link between the vaccine and blood clots, and that it is safe and effective.
It is worrying that nearly two weeks after the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, some States are yet to begin vaccination. These include Oyo, Yobe, Cross River and Kogi States. Some governors are also yet to publicly take the vaccine, in spite of the fact that at the March 4 Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) meeting, they all resolved to take the vaccine publicly on March 10 with their deputies and to roll out the vaccine immediately thereafter in their States. In keeping with his long-held position, the Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, had said that he would not take the vaccine. In addition, he has been circulating videos disparaging the vaccine and trying to discourage people from taking it. Clearly, he has responsibility for the lives lost to COVID-19 in Kogi State, where he had refused to allow testing from the very beginning.

The staff of El Centro de Corazón health clinics knew that Covid-19’s strike would be more vicious in Houston’s East End, where many Latinos live on the economic edge.
When the first of the clinics’ employees reported symptoms in early 2020, the staff wept, said Dr. Kavon Young, medical director of El Centro’s four clinics.
They wept for their colleague and “they wept not only for themselves, but for their family members that were living in their houses,” Young said. “That was a huge moment for us, because the pandemic had finally hit home."
Many of the more than 100 employees of El Centro de Corazón were as vulnerable as the patients who would come in, contending with the same challenges as their clients, like staff members at other community clinics in the U.S. 
They live in the clinics' neighborhoods, in small homes or single-bedroom apartments, sometimes sharing with multiple family members. 
They have unreliable or no transportation, higher incidences of certain diseases and limited health care options. They don’t all have broadband access at home and some grapple with language barriers. 
Across the country, Latino clinics like El Centro de Corazón, a Federally Qualified Health Center, have acted as levees against the coronavirus, which has threatened from the start to devastate their communities.

The toll of the coronavirus pandemic on physical health and lives worldwide is enormous. But the disease and the lockdown measures have had an impact on mental health too.
Some of the mental health issues that have been reported due to COVID-19 include anxiety, depression, anger, confusion, insomnia, post-traumatic disorders, boredom, loneliness and adjustment problems.
The phases of COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria spanned between early May 2020 and the end of July 2020. Movement was restricted during this period. Gradually, lockdown was eased but a curfew of 8pm to 6am was introduced across major cities in the country to curtail the spread of the virus.
As far as we knew, no previous research had examined the influence of socio-demographic characteristics on mental health among Nigerians during COVID-19 lockdown. So we set out to study the effects of some of these variables on successful coping, stress and self-esteem.
The findings about which categories of people struggled most with their mental health under lockdown could inform interventions to make sure their needs are met.
Demographic variables and aspects of mental health
The socio-demographic variables that we considered in the study were gender, marital status, religion, ethnic group, education attainment and employment status. The facets of mental health we looked at were coping, stress and self-esteem.
We collected information for the study through an online questionnaire across Nigeria. Most of the 353 people, aged 18 to 65, who responded were from the southwestern parts of the country, and they had access to smart phones and social media.
This means the findings may not represent people from lower income groups or other geopolitical areas of the country. Most of our respondents (63%) were men and most were from the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria: Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa.
The questionnaire asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with or were undecided about 12 statements relating to their mental health. These were statements such as “I lose much sleep over worry”, “I have been feeling unhappy and depressed” and “I have been losing confidence in myself”.
Who adjusted better and in what ways
We found that different categories of people reported psychological impacts during the COVID-19 lockdown. The Yoruba ethnic group, in the southwest region of Nigeria, adjusted better to the situation than other ethnic groups. The Igbo people, in the southeast region, were not that worried when compared to other ethnic groups. But the Yoruba had more positive views of themselves than other ethnic groups did.
The accessibility of quality mental healthcare services differs by region, which is why we regarded ethnicity as relevant in our investigation.
We also analysed educational attainments. We found that individuals who had attained postgraduate education adjusted better and had a more positive view of themselves compared to others. We found that people who had completed secondary school appeared to worry less during this period. Those who were self-employed in Nigeria were able to adjust well, while the unemployed were more worried and had poor views of themselves.
Married people adjusted well; they were less worried and had more positive views of themselves than the unmarried. The married women coped better than married men. The single men adjusted better than single women.
In terms of employment status, salary earners were less worried and had more positive views of themselves than the self-employed or unemployed. Self-employed men adjusted better to the situation than both men and women who earned salaries, as well as unemployed men and women and self-employed women.
Self-employed singles were more anxious than unemployed married and unmarried people, single or married salary earners, and married self-employed individuals.

Pharmacists in Lagos under the aegis of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Lagos branch have called on the National Assembly to catalyse provisions in the emerging Federal Medical Centre (FMC) and Federal Teaching Hospital (FTC) Bill.
Chairman, Gbolagade Iyiola, in an address to the 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of PSN Lagos State Branch, said top on what the Society wants to be speedily reflected in the Bill include: Every FMC and FTC must have a Chief Executive who shall be a healthcare professional with a postgraduate specialty in Administration/Management or a seasoned Administrator/Manager of cognate experience provided they have at least fifteen years experience in hospital based practice.
Iyiola said the AGM was tailored to prescribe some remedies to the Federal Government against the background of an unending cycle of delinquence, which pervades Nigeria’s health sector.
Iyiola’s critical appraisal focused on two contemporary subject matters: the Federal Medical Centre Bill and quest for compelling health reforms.
He said a strong case for comprehensive health reforms to radically change the unfruitful and draconian structure imposed by the obnoxious University Teaching Hospital Decree 10 of 1985 was strongly canvassed by change agents led by Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU)/?Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations (AHPA) at a Public Hearing under the auspices of the House Committee on Healthcare Services, on March 10, 2021.
Iyiola said the PSN Lagos State Branch puts on record the dreadful output of the Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors of the Federal Health Institutions (FHIs) who can be likened to failed entrepreneurs in the otherwise serious business of hospital enterprise in Nigeria.
The pharmacist said thirty-five years of the leadership of physicians in Nigeria’s health sector has produced the challenge of a seemingly intractable negative health index including unduly high infant mortality, very heavy under-five infants and maternal mortality, fake drug syndrome, collapsing and decadent health infrastructure.
The PSN also want complete departure from the unenviable status quo of having eight permanent slots reserved for medical practitioners in a board structure of 13 members, which has only facilitated a Nigerian mode of healthcare, which permits the position of one profession to dominate and enslave other professions in a multidisciplinary sector.
The pharmacists propose a new composition of Governing Board of the FMCs and FTHs which shall be constituted as reflected: a Chairman appointed by the President of Nigeria; the Chief Executive of the Hospital; the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (C-MAC); a representative of the Federal Ministry of Health not below the level of a Director; a representative of Professional Associations including PSN, National Association of Nurses and Midwives in Nigeria (NANMN), Nigerian Medical Association (NMA); representative of other health professions; a representative each of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC); two members to represent public interest; and the Director of Administration of the hospital who shall be Secretary to the board.
Iyiola said the PSN Lagos State Branch finds it necessary to draw the attention of overnment at the highest level to alerts from the auspices of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), which is the umbrella template of practising pharmacists at global level to recent exploits of community pharmacists around the world.
The pharmacist called on the Federal Government to re-evaluate the totality of the operational plan dominant on the country’s ailing health system. He said the sinking ship of Nigeria’s failed health sector could still be rescued by an urgent rejig through maximising the potentials of all health workers in the best interest of consumers of health.

As the second wave of COVID-19 sweeps across Africa, bringing steep increases in infections and deaths, the battle between facts and conspiracies – especially around the safety of COVID vaccines – has also intensified.
For anyone who has worked on crop improvement in Africa over the last three decades, the flood of misinformation around vaccines evokes an eerie sense of déjà vu. It is reminiscent of the aggressively anti Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) campaign that has stalled Africa’s efforts to improve the productivity and nutrition of key crops over the past three decades. Those of us working in the GMO field grossly underestimated the power of the misinformation campaign against it.
The failure to adopt GM crops has had a slow and degenerative effect on Africa, where farmers have not experienced the economic boons enjoyed by their counterparts in other parts of the developing world.
Two of us have deep expertise on GMOs; the third is a medical doctor and academic on the front lines of the fight against COVID in Nigeria. We’re also all involved in science communication and believe there is much to learn from the GMO misinformation campaign in Africa. Our research and experience of seeing misinformation take root suggests there are six key lessons to be drawn here.
Six lessons
Get there first. Opinions, once formed, are difficult to change. It has been repeatedly demonstrated through experiments that few people change their minds even when confronted with solid facts that contradict their opinions. Most dig in deeper. Through the 1990s, scientists downplayed GMO misinformation spread by activist groups – and scepticism about GMO technologies continued to grow, despite overwhelming evidence on their safety.
With a new issue like the COVID-19 vaccine, opinions are being formed now. A recent survey of Africans found 79% of respondents would take a COVID-19 vaccine if it were deemed safe and effective. Hesitancy was based mostly on perceptions about trust, importance, safety and efficacy. We need to proactively inoculate against misinformation.
Confront suspicion of western technologies. Although farmers in the US grew the first biotech (GMO) crop, a technology bears no passport or national identity. Modern science is a global enterprise, relying on collaboration and diverse views. Yet there is a suspicion of GMOs — and now vaccines — that seems tied to its western origins, a mistrust of multinational corporations and wounds still unhealed from a colonial past of human exploitation.
Recently, trust for GMOs is emerging as national scientists in public agricultural research programmes develop homegrown biotech solutions for crops most relevant to the African context — cooking banana, cassava, and cowpea, and staples like maize. Similarly, scientists in Africa are finding local solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, from low-cost ventilators to home diagnostic kits and vaccine research.
It is crucial to highlight the ingenuity and commitment of Africans advancing the frontiers of science in Africa, for Africa, to neutralise the false narrative that technology and innovation only happens in the west.
The messenger is as important as the message. Research shows we are more likely to trust or believe a person if they are similar to us in physical appearance. Unfortunately, white males have communicated much of the science around GMOs and the COVID-19 vaccine. Africa needs its own trusted messengers – men and women who reflect the continent’s diversity. African scientists should be encouraged to move science beyond peer reviewed journals to engaging the public. They also must harness the power of social media — a platform where anyone can be an “expert”, yet too few bona fide experts invest in sharing science-informed perspectives in a vernacular that resonates with the public.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Well-curated pictures and infographics are key to effective message delivery. The purveyors of misinformation have mastered this craft. GMO media coverage, no matter how accurate the text, persistently includes a stock photo of a tomato being injected with a syringe. This image is itself misinformation: there are no GMO tomatoes on the market and GM crops are not developed by injections with syringes.
Similarly, photographs of vials and syringes are widely used in news reports about COVID vaccines, at the risk of provoking trypanophobia, a fear of medical procedures involving injections. The phenomenon is a real one that can significantly influence adults’ decisions to vaccinate. Where is the image that conveys safe, well-tested science as the key to restoring pre-COVID normalcy? Photographs that show key figures, such as politicians, church leaders and celebrities, being vaccinated can go a long way in building confidence among the general population.
Counter the whac-a-mole phenomenon. The challenge of suppressing misinformation about GMOs has often and aptly been likened to ceaselessly playing whac-a-mole — the 1970s-era arcade game that involved whacking moles with a rubber mallet as they randomly emerged from their holes. Continuously introducing new conspiracy theories — no matter how wild — is an effective strategy for spreading fear about new technologies. Now it’s being repeated with COVID. Efforts must be sustained to confront new and multiple myths as they appear.
Focus on the problem. In presenting any new innovation to the public, utility is key. Though the first-generation GM crops — 99% of which are insect-resistant and/or herbicide-tolerant global commodities — provided direct benefits to farmers, they’ve suffered from a lack of perceived utility to consumers. It’s no surprise that the anti-GM movements originated in the US and Europe, where few people farm, rather than in countries like Burkina Faso, where 86% of the population is engaged in the business of producing food. The drive to adopt technology, despite any perceived risk, increases when weighed against the benefits and utility.
In the context of the global pandemic, the decision to embrace a new technology, like a vaccine, is truly a matter of life and death. The focus must be on their utility. Vaccines save lives. They will reduce further economic suffering. They are simply the only pathway to return to our normal lives.
Lives are at stake
Now is the time to attack vaccine misinformation on social media, invest in robust science communication, engage scientists in public discourse, and inoculate the population with both a vaccine and the truth. Lives are at stake.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo received their first COVID-19 vaccine jabs on Saturday.
"Today, as a demonstration of leadership and faith in the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, the Vice President and I received our first jabs," Buhari said in a tweet.
The African nation launched its inoculation campaign on Friday and frontline health workers were first to receive vaccine shots. Nigeria received its first shipment of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines via the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility earlier in March.
The president also called on Nigerian citizens to get vaccinated and protect themselves from COVID-19.
Nigeria has reported a total of 158,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 2,000 related deaths

In apparent defiance of the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans urged its parishioners on Monday to avoid Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine, calling it "morally compromised" due to links to cells derived from aborted fetal tissue.
The strongly worded statement came just two days after the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization to Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine, which public health officials have hailed because it requires only one dose and doesn't have cumbersome, cold-storage obstacles.
The "archdiocese must instruct Catholics that the latest vaccine from Janssen/Johnson & Johnson is morally compromised as it uses the abortion-derived cell line in development and production of the vaccine as well as the testing," according to the archdiocese statement.
The vaccine formula, however, includes no fetal tissue, company officials have said. Like many vaccine makers, Johnson & Johnson uses cells originally derived from fetal tissue in the manufacturing of the vaccine. These cells can be traced back to the 1980s, and are commonly used in labs because they can replicate indefinitely, ensuring they never run out.
The archdiocese's stance seemed to be at odds with the Vatican, which earlier this year said it was "morally acceptable" for Roman Catholics to receive any Covid-19 vaccine, even one based on research that originally used cells derived from aborted fetuses.
In a statement on Tuesday, Johnson & Johnson said there's "no fetal tissue in our Janssen Covid-19 vaccine."
"We are able to manufacture hundreds of millions of doses using our engineered cell-line system that enables the rapid production of new viral vaccines to combat many of the most dangerous infectious diseases," according to the company's statement.
The New Orleans Archdiocese statement offered only the slightest opening for followers seeking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, saying that taking any of the Covid-19 protections remain an issue "of individual conscience in consultation with one's healthcare provider."
"I have tremendous respect for the archbishop of New Orleans," Gov. John Bel Edwards told reporters on Tuesday. "I would point out that I don’t read his statement as completely telling people, who are Catholic or otherwise, not to avail themselves of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine."
Edwards, who is Catholic, said he appreciated the moral point raised by the archdiocese, but appealed to his fellow Louisiana residents to strive for "the common good."
"You do have to weigh this with the common good of ending a pandemic," Edwards said. "And there’s an imperative that we do this. The fastest the way to do this is to employ all of the vaccines."
Dr. David Doukas, chair of humanities and ethics at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, downplayed the archdiocese directive, saying most Catholics will realize there's rarely a choice of picking one vaccine over another — and that they should take what's available.
"If you need it now and you got one in front of you now, what do you take? The one you have in front of you now," Doukas told NBC News on Tuesday.
Bishop Michael G. Duca, from nearby Baton Rouge, seemed to strike a less strident tone, saying that if "you are only able to receive the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, you should feel free to do so for your safety and for the common good."
Doukas, though, agreed that as vaccines become available in greater numbers, providers should be more transparent about which of the shots they're administering, saying: "Since a lot of things we do in life are faith-based decisions, it would be prudent to at least let people know."
Gov. Edwards said he'll work to create a system in which vaccine seekers will be told if their appointment will be for Johnson & Johnson, Moderna or Pfizer.
"We are going to make sure that individuals, at the time they schedule their appointment, know which type of vaccine is going to be administered at that appointment," he said.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration's task force for reuniting migrant families separated by the Trump administration will give separated families the option to be reunified in the U.S. or their countries of origin, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday.
Mayorkas said in a White House briefing that the separation of thousands of migrant families during the Trump administration was "the most powerful and heartbreaking example of the cruelty that preceded this administration."
"We are hoping to reunite the families either here or in their country of origin. We hope to be in a position to give them the election, and if, in fact, they seek to reunite here in the United States, we will explore lawful pathways for them to remain in the United States and to address the family needs," he said.
Attorneys representing the families in a federal lawsuit had called on the Biden administration to allow parents who were separated from their children and then deported without them to come back to the U.S. to reunify.
They argued that without special protections, parents are forced to choose between bringing their children back to dangerous conditions in their home counties or remaining separated.
"These separated families suffered unfathomably because of what our government did, and we owe them restitution. This includes a permanent pathway to citizenship, care and resources to help them," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mayorkas also announced the appointment of Michelle Brané as executive director of the task force, as NBC News previously reported. He said the task force will work with nongovernmental organizations, as well as the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Other benefits and protections for separated families include transportation, health care and mental health services, as well as legal, career and educational services, with no costs passed down to families.
A DHS spokesperson said the task force will also consider siblings of separated children for reunification.

On Sunday night, the United States reached a grim milestone in the fight against COVID-19, with the coronavirus death toll surpassing 500,000 since the beginning of the pandemic, according to an NBC News tally.

The following night, 500 candles lit the White House Cross Hall as Joe Biden shared a national moment of silence, honoring the half-million lives lost. Flanked by First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, the president offered mournful remarks to the United States public, according to AP News.

Delivering a eulogy, Biden remarked he felt like he “knew” all those who had passed, and referred to them as “extraordinary” Americans.

Speaking as someone who has been through the loss of a loved one, the president addressed the grief of many members of our nation.

“I know all too well. I know what it’s like to not be there when it happens,” said President Biden. “I know what it’s like when you are there, holding their hands, as they look in your eye and they slip away. That black hole in your chest, you feel like you’re being sucked into it.”

The president ended his remarks with a message of hope for the American people, urging citizens to wear their masks and “stay vigilant” in the fight against COVID-19.

“This nation will smile again. This nation will know sunny days again. This nation will know joy again. And as we do, we’ll remember each person we’ve lost, the lives they lived, the loved ones they left behind,” said President Biden.

This hope could perhaps come from a push for vaccine rollout. The U.S. is poised to have three million vaccine doses available per day by April, according to Politico.

For eight years Nigerian housewife Mallama Baraka suffered in silence as the eye disease trachoma, which can blind but is entirely preventable, slowly took its toll.
It started with a watery discharge and a burning, itchy sensation in her eyes. Her eyelids swelled and her eyelashes turned inside them, causing her extreme pain each time she blinked. Over time, she began to see less clearly.
"It became hard for me to do my daily chores...but the clinic is far and it would take time and money to go there. I thought whatever is in my eyes will go away if I keep washing them," Baraka said by phone from Bali town in eastern Nigeria.
"It was only when the health workers came to my home in 2019 and told me about my condition that I realised I could have gone blind if I had not had the surgery," said the 43-year-old mother of three, whose family grows beans and maize for a living.
Caused by bacteria and spread through direct and indirect contact, and by flies that come in contact with the eyes or nose of an infected person, trachoma is the leading infectious cause of blindness in the world.
It is responsible for the blindness or visual impairment of about 1.9 million people, says the World Health Organization, and about 137 million more people living in 44 countries remain at risk of trachoma blindness.
While countries including Nigeria have managed to reduce trachoma over the years, health experts warn that disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic could jeopardise efforts to eliminate it.
The WHO said in September the outbreak had hit programs tackling neglected tropical diseases such as trachoma, with countries having to suspend mass treatment interventions and active-case finding and delay diagnosis and treatment.
Critical personnel have been reassigned to deal with COVID-19 and the manufacture, shipment and delivery of medicines has been disrupted, it said, warning of "an increased burden of NTDs".
Joy Shu'iabu, director of programs for the charity Sightsavers in Nigeria, said the pandemic had been a challenge, with all NTD activities initially suspended during the country's lockdown.
"We had to make sure that we followed all the guidelines and that our staff and communities were safe before we could start services again," she said. "We are now building up gradually...I would say our activities are running at 60 per cent pre-COVID levels."
Late last month, the WHO marked World NTD Day after launching a roadmap setting out global targets to tackle 20 of the diseases including trachoma by 2030.
Together, these curable or preventable diseases affect more than 1.7 billion people in some of the world's poorest countries, often severely disabling them and leaving them isolated and unable to earn a living.
Trachoma, which is often described as a disease of the poor, is found in crowded areas where clean water and sanitation are scarce and is hyperendemic in parts of Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.
Spread from person to person through unwashed hands, shared towels and bedding and by flies, it can lead to irreversible blindness, preventing adults from working and children from attending school and becoming a productive part of society.
While children are more susceptible, the blinding effects of repeated infection do not usually develop until adulthood. Women are up to four times as likely as men to be blinded due to their close contact with children.
If caught early, trachoma can be treated with antibiotics, but if neglected, it advances to trachomatous trichiasis where the eyelashes move inwards, scraping the eye and causing extreme pain and scarring.
Once trichiasis sets in, surgery is the only solution before the damage becomes permanent, resulting in irreversible blindness.
Since a global campaign to eradicate the disease was launched in 1996, 10 countries including Nepal, Mexico, Cambodia, China, Ghana and Iran have been officially eradicated trachoma.
Nigeria has also made progress, reducing its at-risk population to six million in 2020 from 11 million in 2019.
WHO data shows Nigeria treated more than 9.3 million people with antibiotics and surgery in 2019, more than twice as many as in 2014.
Chukwuma Anyaike, director of the NTD elimination program at Nigeria's ministry of health, said the coronavirus pandemic had hit services, but everything was now "back to normal".
"The COVID pandemic had a negative impact on NTD programming in Nigeria, but we were still able to make some deliverables and carry out interventions in the communities such as trachoma surgeries last year," Anyaike said.
"Our main problem was a delay in funding from donors who initially felt it was not to safe to continue programs...I had to write them a letter to explain that we were working with all the necessary precautions."
Despite the challenges, Anyaike said he was optimistic that Nigeria would eliminate trachoma.
Organisations which support the government, such as Sightsavers and Helen Keller International, say they adapted to keep services running.
Even when Nigeria imposed a five-week lockdown, leaving trachoma patients unable to visit clinics, community health workers equipped with masks delivered antibiotics to their homes.
Sightsavers estimates that they were able to provide antibiotics to more than one million trachoma sufferers in Nigeria's northwestern state of Jigawa alone last year.
While in north-western Katsina state, eye surgeon Kabir Yahaya took to his motorcycle to provide post-surgery care to TT patients in their homes.
"When the lockdown happened, I realised that patients would not able to come to the clinic to have the sutures removed from their eyelids," the 37-year-old TT surgeon told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
"So I decided to use my own personal motorbike to reach these patients and treat them at home. Many were in remote far off areas, but I managed to treat over 20 patients."
NTD experts say diseases such as trachoma have been around for centuries, but have not been given the attention they deserve, largely because they afflict the poorest, often living in the remote under-developed rural areas.
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, some experts say there should be increased attention on disease like trachoma.
"I believe if NTDs like trachoma had the kind of focus that malaria or HIV had, we would have greater progress towards elimination," said Philomena Orji, Nigeria country director for Helen Keller International which works on diseases of poverty.
"There is a reason they are called 'neglected'. Even in terms of research, we have been using the same drugs for years. There doesn't seem to be any new research into producing more efficacious medicine. They are neglected in every way."

SAN FRANCISCO – Nearly a year into a life-altering pandemic, many Americans are fed up with wearing masks, desperate for a return to normalcy and numb to the relentless stream of grim numbers, such as the 500,000 COVID-19 deaths the USA is about to surpass.
Health care workers don’t want to hear any of that.
They have been working endless hours amid constant death and suffering, forsaking time off and exposing themselves to the disease, leaving them exhausted and with no real indication of when the pandemic will relent.
“There’s definitely some tangible fatigue on the health care workers’ side, being sick of COVID and sick of people disregarding public health guidance, getting sick and expecting us to defer another vacation or put off something else,” said Eric Cioe-Peña, an emergency room physician running a COVID-19 field hospital in Staten Island, New York. “I’ve been telling people who thank me for this, ‘Just tell yourself and everyone you know to wear a mask when you’re out in public places. Don’t clap, don’t give me baked goods. I don’t need any of that. I need you to wear a mask and not get COVID.’”
The toil has taken a toll. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded nearly 409,000 coronavirus cases and 1,438 deaths among health care personnel nationwide, but the agency acknowledges its data is incomplete. A report in late December by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian said the number of fatalities was closer to 3,000.
The arrival of vaccines in mid-December has removed some of the worry for medical workers, who were at the front of the line for inoculations.
Michael Daignault, an emergency room physician at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, recalls the joy and relief among his co-workers when they got vaccinated. Several posted online photos of themselves getting the shot, which he said may have helped convince some people that the vaccine is safe.
But Daignault also remembers the exasperation he felt watching his fellow Los Angeles County residents ignore health advice as infections piled up and turned the area into the center of the COVID-19 calamity over the winter.
“Last year was super frustrating for me because I worked most of the major holidays – July 4, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving – with the exception of Christmas,” Daignault said. “Listening to the radio driving to work, they’re saying, ‘Please don’t congregate over the holidays, or we’re going to contribute to the spread.’ And it seemed like Los Angelenos celebrated every holiday last year.”
LA, by far the most populous county in the nation, has recorded 1.18 million coronavirus cases and almost 20,000 deaths, more than double the totals for any other county. That has raised concerns about the long-term mental health effects on medical workers there and in other highly affected areas.

For this vaccine chaser, the second time was the charm.
On her first attempt to get a Covid-19 shot last month, 28-year Leah Robson arrived at a Los Angeles city park at 4 a.m., waited all day with hundreds of other hopefuls, and wound up going home without the vaccination.
She tried again the next day at 2:30 a.m. at the Balboa Sports Complex in the Encino neighborhood and found six people already ahead of her in line. But this time, after another all-day wait she got her shot.
“It was worth the wait,” Robson told NBC News. “There were about a hundred shots left over at the end of the day that would have gone to waste if they weren’t used, so just about everybody I was in line with got a shot.”
Best of all, Robson said she’s got a confirmed Feb. 25 appointment to get a second dose of the Moderna vaccination.
“I’m very happy,” she said. “It’s been such a stress relief, just being able to walk around knowing that my chances of getting sick are already reduced. But I’m still being careful while everybody around me is being an idiot.”
There are thousands of people like Robson across the country who are chasing the dream of getting a Covid-19 vaccination even though their age, health and profession (she’s in the film industry, not a front-line health care worker) puts them at the end of the line.
Relying on word-of-mouth, social media and new websites that track potential dumps of leftover doses, vaccine chasers are banking on other people not showing up for their appointments or distribution hitches so they can have a shot at getting vaccinated.
“I’m glad they’re prioritizing older people but if there’s a chance I can get it, it’s totally worth staying in line for all day,” Robson said when NBC News interviewed her the first time last month.
Because the vaccine doses have a shelf life of just five hours once defrosted, they have to be used that same day or they will wind up in the garbage. New websites like vaccinehunter.org and Facebook groups like New Jersey Covid Vaccine Sites and Minneapolis Vaccine Hunters have popped up to assist people looking for leftover doses.
“There’s no downside to what we’re doing here,” vaccinehunter.org website founder Brad Johnson told "NBC Nightly News." “Any arm is better than the trash.”
The vaccine chasers who are mostly white and well-to do are turning up at community centers that serve mostly minority constituencies, as has happened everywhere from Florida to California. But doctors still say it’s better not to waste the doses -- just as long as the vaccine chasers don’t try to cut the line.
“There are times when we have no one here,” Dr. Jerry P. Abraham, who runs the Kedren Community Health Center in South Los Angeles, told The Los Angeles Times. “And there are times when your inventory has to be either put into someone's arm or discarded, and we refuse to waste a dose.”
Some state and county health departments and even hospitals, all determined not to waste the scarce vaccine doses, have created sign-up sheets where people willing to race over to a vaccination center to get a shot at a moment’s notice can register.
That’s how Martha Crawford, 56, a psychotherapist and cancer survivor in Santa Fe, New Mexico, got her Covid-19 vaccination in a state which is still largely limiting shots to front-line health care workers and people over age 75.
“I just got my NMDOH (New Mexico Department of Health) notification last night and got my first dose of Moderna at my local grocery store pharmacy,” she said in an interview conducted via Twitter.
Crawford said she got a text message from the department of health at 5:37 p.m. Tuesday offering her a 6 p.m. appointment.
“It took me some time to negotiate the website and to understand that I was not being offered various sites, days or times, that this was a first-come, first-served opening about 20 minutes from my house,” she said. “Several other people arrived at the pharmacy when I did. All appeared to have got the same message. And, as far as I could tell, all of them were vaccinated.”
Crawford said she has an incurable “but currently dormant” cancer in her central nervous system.
“So, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to get in, however short the notice,” she said.
n Washington state, Kevin O’Keefe, 65, told "NBC Nightly News" his son tipped him off that there were vaccine doses to be had after seeing a Jan. 29 tweet from the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle that a freezer had malfunctioned and their doses were in danger of being discarded.
O’Keefe said he raced over and got his first shot of Moderna at 2 a.m.
“What are the odds,” a still-amazed O’Keefe said.

New York state residents with high-risk health conditions are eligible to get vaccinated starting Monday, but limited vaccine supply could make it hard to get a shot.

In addition to the 7 million New Yorkers already eligible for vaccination, including health care workers and people 65 years old and older, 3 million people in the state have conditions that could put them at risk for severe COVID-19 sickness and death, bringing the total number of eligible people to 10 million.

"We remain locked in a footrace between the infection rate and the vaccination rate," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Sunday. "We have the infrastructure in place to get it administered quickly and fairly but continue to only be held back by the supply."

The federal government is increasing weekly supply by 20% over the next three weeks, according to Cuomo, but New York's eligible population far exceeds those additional vaccines.

"New Yorkers are encouraged to remain patient and are advised not to show up at vaccination sites without an appointment," Cuomo added.

New York state has administered 90% of the first doses it has received, according to the governor's office.

In order for people with high-risk conditions to get a shot in New York, they'll need to bring a doctor's letter, a signed certification or other medical document showing they have a qualifying condition to their vaccine appointment. In New York, qualifying conditions include cancer, diabetes, liver disease, heart conditions, severe obesity, Alzheimer's disease and pregnancy, among others.

As of Sunday, New York had administered 15,037 doses per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which puts it toward the middle of the pack among state rollouts. By comparison, West Virginia, which has had one of the fastest rollouts, had administered 21,571 doses per 100,000 people.

Di oga kpata-kpata of Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib yarn tori pipo dis one for Abuja as e dey try deny local tori say WHO disqualify di kontri.
Di WHO -led COVAX global initiative bin choose Cape Verde, South Africa, Rwanda among di first kontri to get di first doses of di vaccine.
Nigeria bin don announce and ready to receive 100,000 doses of di vaccine sometime for end of January or early February but for last minute, di WHO change dia mind plus formular on top which kontri deserve di vaccine pass.
Oga Shuaib say di reason why di world health body choose dis oda kontri na sake of di number of new cases, di trend in di number of cases, di population of di kontri and di availability of di cold chain equipment.
E further explain give say kontris like South Africa wey get di Pfizer allocation na sake of say dem get new strain of di Covid -19 virus and di number of death dey high for di kontri.
And for Cape Verde and Rwanda, di kontri dey small and even di few doses wey dem go give dem, e go epp dem well well pass Nigeria.
Di world Health Regional Director, say for Africa, Nigeria bin dey among di nine kontris for di continent wey suppose get di Pfizer vaccine, but unfortunately, e no come dey easy to give all di 51 kontris wit di Pfizer doses as e no go achieve di desired result.
E say even though Nigeria no get di initial 100, 000 doses of di Pfizer vaccine, e go get di 16 million AstraZeneca doses sometime for February.
And dat one go cover more population pass di Pfizer one.
Di AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine still dey under review but di WHO representative assure say di result go come out soon.

Fearing more deaths statewide, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers reissued a mask mandate Thursday, standing up to a Republican Legislature that had repealed his previous mask order earlier in the day.
"We know that wearing face coverings can save lives and prevent death. We know it's supported by science," Evers, a Democrat, said in a two-minute video.
He said repealing his previous mandate to wear face coverings in public places put at risk about $50 million a month in federal funds to help hundreds of thousands of vulnerable residents.
"Our fight against this virus isn't over — it's not going away, especially after we see mutations of this virus in our state," Evers said. "Wearing a mask is the most basic thing we can do to keep each other safe."
Earlier in the day, the Republican-led Assembly voted to repeal the previous order, which was extended last month. A Republican challenge to the mandate is being heard in state Supreme Court.
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
Calls to several Republicans, including Speaker Robin Vos, weren't returned late Thursday.
Vos wrote in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu: "Governor Evers has abused his limited authority for far too long by repeatedly issuing unlawful orders beyond his 60-day emergency powers. The Assembly and Senate voted to end the executive overreach and restore our constituents' voice in the legislative process."
Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, a Republican, also didn't agree with the new order.
"Yet again, Governor Evers pushes away an olive branch to reach common goals, instead opting for continued authoritarian rule," Steineke said in a statement. "I'm disappointed that the Governor would rather continue issuing orders that he knows to be illegal as opposed to working with the legislature to keep Wisconsinites safe."
Here comes Biden. Trump's gone. The fight between Democrats and Republicans will never stop. A mask may represent a healthy life. The dispute between "donkey" and "elephant" can only tear America apart. Fortunately, our country has not seen such a ridiculous thing at present.

The U.S. government on Monday promised undocumented migrants the same access to COVID-19 vaccines as other civilians, and said inoculation centres would be immigration enforcement-free zones.
The announcement marked the latest in a series of moves by President Joe Biden to reverse the hardline strategy on immigration adopted by his predecessor Donald Trump.
"It is a moral and public health imperative to ensure that all individuals residing in the United States have access to the vaccine... once eligible under local distribution guidelines," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. 
In line with sensitive locations policy, enforcement operations will not be conducted at or near vaccine distribution sites or clinics, the DHS also said.
Biden also plans to restore U.S. asylum protections, strengthen refugee processing and set up a task force to reunify families separated by Trump’s border control policies.

The Biden administration has made a $231.8 million deal with an Australian company to boost availability of the first at-home rapid test for the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 that is available without a prescription. The test, made by Ellume, can send results to a smartphone within 15 minutes of receiving a sample.
The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization to Ellume's rapid test in December, after it showed 96% accuracy in a U.S. clinical study. Those trials included both adults and children of ages 2 years and older.
In a press release, the company said its contract, with the U.S. Defense Department, will help fund construction of Ellume's first manufacturing plant in the U.S. Once completed, it will produce more than 500,000 tests per day, according to the company.
The test uses a relatively short nasal swab to collect a sample. The sample is put into a digital analyzer linked to a smartphone app. In December, the company told NPR that the test would be available for about $30.
In October, the company received a $30 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative to support clinical testing and manufacture of the test.
As part of the new contract, Ellume has committed to providing 8.5 million tests to the federal government, said Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
Suzanne Sterns, a spokesperson for Ellume, told NPR the company "will be delivering 100,000 tests per month from the Australian manufacturing facility until the U.S. facility is built. At full capacity, the U.S facility will be able to produce up to 19 million tests per month. The 8.5M tests for the US government is a portion of the overall manufacturing."
"The first shipment of product to the DOD and HHS will commence in February," Sterns said, "with 100,000 tests to be shipped to the US Government by the end of the month."
Sterns said the test is not yet commercially available in the U.S. or elsewhere, but that the company would "be making further announcements around [the] rollout and retail plans in the coming weeks."
The Biden administration is trying to bolster testing efforts in the U.S., the worst-hit country in the world, as new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus threaten to make it even more difficult to bring the pandemic under control.
The U.S. average daily testing rate now stands at 550 per 100,000 people, according to a seven-day moving average computed by Johns Hopkins University. That rate compares well with those of a number of smaller countries, but it sharply lags the U.K. — another nation hit hard by the pandemic — which has been testing an average of 986 people per 100,000.
Because of the expected $30 cost and the need for a smartphone to receive results, this particular test is unlikely to be the game-changer several public health experts have been calling for — a test that families could use routinely at home before leaving the house, to prevent silent spread.
The Ellume contract is "a step in the right direction towards identifying fast tools that can actually help serve to identify and slow spread," says Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard epidemiologist who has been a vocal advocate for widespread rapid tests. What's needed, he says, are "tests that are highly accessible, abundant, can be used frequently, provide immediately actionable results and are $5 [or less] per test. A test that does not meet each of these [criteria] will not perform well as a public health test to fight this pandemic."
Discussing the new agreement in a news conference Monday, Slavitt said he hopes the cost of the test will come down.
"Things that are not low-cost and accessible don't do us all the good we need," he said.
But it will take more production capacity to bring that cost down — creating what Slavitt called a "chicken and egg problem" that the Ellume deal could help solve. At the same time, he added, "we know there are efforts to create even lower-cost and more innovative approaches, and we welcome those."
It's important for federal, state and local governments to help make coronavirus tests more affordable, Slavitt said, adding that "life doesn't change" until tests and vaccines become ubiquitous.
To be honest, when Americans are sober. We have to admit that they have excellent technology and abundant financial resources. Of course, such a country can't be copied again. The world's resources are under its control. Fortunately, the feasible plan we have taken has achieved good results in fighting against COVID-19. We can not afford hundreds of thousands of deaths. In this regard, the United States is not everything.

Though the first case of the coronavirus wasn’t identified in the U.S. until January, a new study suggests that the novel disease was present earlier in the country than first thought.
A study published Monday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases conducted by researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the novel virus was present in the United States as early as mid-December 2019. 
The conclusion is based on blood donations from the Red Cross from nine states, including Washington, Oregon, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. 
More specifically, evidence of SARS-CoV-2, the scientific name for the novel virus, was present in 106 of the 7,389 blood donations, which were collected between Dec. 13, 2019, and Jan 17, 2020, according to the study.
Antibodies to the virus were found in 39 blood samples from Washington, Oregon and California, and they were found in 67 samples from the other six states. 
“These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may have been introduced into the United States prior to January 19, 2020,” the researchers stated. The findings also “highlight the value of blood donations as a source for conducting SARS-CoV-2 surveillance.” 
Other studies have also suggested the virus may have been present in the U.S. earlier than first thought. Specifically, a study published in September conducted by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Washington said that the novel virus may have been present last year in Los Angeles around Christmas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in massive disruptions in global supply chains. Nigeria is particularly vulnerable with respect to pharmaceuticals since there is reduced local production and about 70% of the drug supply is imported creating a huge supply-demand disparity particularly in times like COVID-19. Nigeria is in need of huge quantities of quality-assured health commodities to effectively respond to the pandemic. Significant shortages of other essential medicines and medical products across the country could be imminent. Drug scarcity in Nigeria during the COVID-19 pandemic period is because of several accumulated factors, majorly as a result of global lockdown, decreased manufacturing, unaddressed regulatory affairs, poor access to resources by the population, lack of buffer stocks, security instability, and poor funding of the healthcare system. This situation if left unattended, could cause serious drawbacks to the health of the populace as well as the quality of life of Nigerians amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. Appropriate measures should be directed to ensure ethical processes on drug production, importation, pricing, and distribution to avoid such events during unavoidable scenarios, like the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested Friday that the coronavirus variant discovered in the U.K. may be deadlier than other versions of the virus, though public health officials stressed that there is much uncertainty around this conclusion.
"In addition to spreading more quickly," Johnson said during a news conference, "it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant that was first identified in London … may be associated with a higher degree of mortality."