Changes in the journalism profession have made journalism education challenging. For instance, the growth of the internet has given everyone the ability to generate and distribute information. This includes news materials and photographs, shared across public platforms without any professional or editorial scrutiny.
As a result of this democratisation, journalists are struggling to adapt to this new reality, where they compete daily with a larger society that has blurred the lines between creators and consumers of news.

Constant changes in the profession have raised interest in the quality and relevance of journalism education. In these times, university journalism education is becoming increasingly important in shaping journalism practice. Every year, there are more people who take on journalism, armed with formal education and degrees.

There are countless debates about how journalism should be taught and learned in formal spaces. Policy makers, journalism professionals, students, educators — everyone is asking questions about the way forward.

Stakeholders are becoming more interested in how journalism is taught and learned in the university.

A number of journalism studies show that tertiary qualifications are important for journalists around the world. Advancement in tech have brought rapid and radical changes to journalism. This has ramped up pressure on journalism training institutions, as schools struggle to keep up with industry changes.

The challenge is this: while the media industry is very welcoming to fast changes, journalism training institutions are primarily conservative spaces, stuck in their ways.

In 2019, communication educators, media and communication professionals, and industry regulators submitted a new curriculum for Nigerian communication studies to the National Universities Commission.

This was done for quality assurance purposes. This proposal was created to unify and standardise a consistent curriculum for communication and journalism education. The submission received widespread support and backing from industry professional groups and all the relevant regulators.

The grand plan was to unbundle what was known as “mass communication”. This will give way to seven degree-awarding departments in all universities. They include Journalism and Media Studies, Public Relations, Advertising, Broadcasting, Film and Multimedia Studies, Development Communication Studies, and Information and Media Studies. While this proposal holds promise in upgrading media education, many local universities are yet to adopt and implement it.

Over the years, multiple studies focusing on improving journalism training institutions have been conducted. The core focus is usually to design a way for these institutions to adapt to today’s reality. The aim is to quickly upskill, embrace new industry developments and maintain their relevance to the journalism industry. But most of the studies were incomplete. They approached the problem by prioritising the perspectives of the educators and professionals. Students, the recipients of these changes, were never consulted.

My study aimed to fill this gap. These are uncertain times for journalism. The industry keeps changing fast. What is the place of formal journalism education? Especially when traditional media jobs are shrinking as digital media soars.

Only 53 (18.2%) out of 292 student participants in my study identified a connection between their studies and the reality of the industry. They were up against 66.1%, who stated that their learning institutions were deficient. The interviewed students pointed out the gaps in skills, equipment and the overall understanding of what journalism means.

This in no way suggests that a university journalism education is worthless. All the students agreed that they still placed a high premium on the knowledge acquired in the university.

White House urges Americans to get vaccinated as B-117 variant surpasses 44% of all cases
Just a few days before every adult in the U.S. will become eligible to get a coronavirus vaccine on Monday, the White House stressed how important those shots are to beating back the pandemic -- especially in recent weeks, as the more transmissible B-117 variant has rapidly become the most dominant and new cases hover near 70,000 per day.
"All roads to defeating the pandemic go through the path of successfully and quickly vaccinating the country," White House COVID adviser Andy Slavitt said at a White House briefing on Friday.
The good news is the U.S. has an ample supply of vaccines, even with the recent pause of Johnson & Johnson vaccines. More than one-third of the total population has already gotten one shot, while 80% of the highest-risk demographic, adults 65 and older, has received one shot. The remaining states that haven't opened eligibility to all adults will do so on April 19.
"I am proud of the progress we've made," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at the briefing. "But we must continue to get many more people vaccinated."
That's because vaccinations are still nowhere near where they need to be to hit "herd immunity," and quickly-spreading, potentially deadlier variants such as the B-117, first discovered in the U.K., have taken hold in the U.S.

ABUJA, NIGERIA - Nigerian authorities are stepping up efforts to vaccinate more people against COVID-19 after a slow rollout blamed on misinformation. Authorities aim to vaccinate over 80 million Nigerians by year’s end but are running far behind schedule. 

An Abuja vaccination center, which opened March 16, one week after Nigeria's official vaccine rollout, vaccinates between 50 and 100 people daily. 
It is one of many vaccination locations in the Nigerian capital. 
Abuja resident Olu Agunbiade visited the center to get his first shot and says receiving the vaccine makes him feel safer.  
"I can venture out into the world with a form of protection," he told VOA. "I know that doesn't mean I can't still contract COVID, but at least I have antibodies, I can fight it.”  
Nigeria received about 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine early last month.  
Authorities say they will vaccine around 80 million people by the end of the year, but so far, only about 1 million have received shots. 
Although authorities say more Nigerians are now getting vaccinated, Abuja Primary Healthcare Board Executive Secretary Ndeyo Iwot says vaccine hesitancy and misinformation about the coronavirus are to blame for the low numbers.  
"There's a very big problem. Now start from the beginning, how many people even believed that we have the pandemic here? And now you want to bring vaccine for what they did not believe in the first instance? We have a lot of work to do," Iwot says.    
As workaround, authorities are trying to increase vaccine awareness in communities, villages, and marketplaces.   
Despite this, though, citizens like Richard Uka insist they will not get the vaccine. 
"To be sincere, I don't think this is necessary, to me it's not necessary," Uka told VOA. "And I believe that in Nigeria nothing works. How do you think that that vaccine works or how do we know that it works?” 
Nigeria needs to vaccinate about 150 million citizens by next year to attain herd immunity.  
Iwot, though, says getting adequate doses of vaccines may prove difficult.  
"Looking at the pandemic situation in Europe, India and the U.S.A. and the U.K., some of them are experiencing the third and fourth spikes now and India that was giving us is also having spikes now. So many of the dosages they have will be consumed there," Iwot told VOA.
Very few African countries are able to manufacture the coronavirus vaccines, creating heavy dependence on foreign manufacturers.  
The World Health Organization says the continent has so far received less than 2% of the global 690 million doses of the coronavirus vaccines.

The average cost of making a pot of jollof rice in Nigeria rose by 7.8% between March 2020 and March 2021. This is contained in the SBM Jollof index report for Q1 2021, published by SB Morgen.
According to the report, the increase was caused by the prolonged border closure, increased energy tariffs, exchange rate volatility, coronavirus pandemic, and the restrictions of forex for the importation of items, largely due to falling oil prices.
It also identified the effect of the #EndSARS protest against brutality and the response of the government, which brought the main economic states in Nigeria (Lagos and Abuja) to a standstill for major parts of the month of October 2020.

1. Which vaccines are currently available in Nigeria? 
The AstraZeneca Vaccine is the only COVID-19 vaccine in use in Nigeria at the moment.
Nigeria has received doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX — a programme co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, along with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) — to ensure equitable vaccine access for low- and middle-income countries.
Nigeria is also expecting another 40 million vaccine doses from the African Union (AU) to be delivered by the end of April, said government official Tolu Ogunlesi. 
The AU recently concluded a deal with Johnson & Johnson to secure 400 million doses of its single-dose jab starting in July 2021, and Faisal Shuaib, who heads Nigeria's National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) told Reuters that the Nigerian government is hoping to secure 70 million doses of those vaccines.
The NPHCDA is the government agency directly responsible for distributing the COVID-19 vaccines around the country. 
2. How many doses of the COVID-19 vaccine does Nigeria have?
Nigeria has received around 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine out of the 16 million COVID-19 vaccine doses it expects from COVAX. The remaining doses are expected to be delivered in the coming months. 
It has also received a donation of 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from telecommunication company MTN and another 100,000 doses from the Indian government.
3. Who can get the COVID-19 vaccine right now? 
Frontline health care workers, government officials, contact tracing teams, and the elderly are first in line to get the jab.
“The vaccine rollout will be in four phases, starting with health workers, frontline workers, COVID-19 rapid response team, laboratory network, policemen, petrol station workers, and strategic leaders,” said Shuaib in March.
4. How can Nigerians get the vaccine? 
Eligible Nigerians can get the vaccine by registering on the NPHCDA website, after which they will receive a vaccination ID. 
However, NPHCDA also says that its vaccine rollout plans are still in the first phase, which it says is all about prioritising health and frontline workers across the country, suggesting that vaccination is not open to the rest of the public just yet. 
“The current phase (phase one) of vaccination covers health workers and other frontline workers; but with the health workers given priority ahead of the others. The frontline workers include personnel from sectors such as the military, paramilitary and other security agencies, transportation and logistics, communications, education, religious, finance, relevant government agencies,” it said in a statement.
5. How many people have gotten the vaccine? 
Just under a million Nigerians — less than 1% of the population — have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of April 6, according to data from NPHCDA.
The commercial city of Lagos, which has recorded the highest number of cases in Nigeria (more than 57,000), has also vaccinated the most people — just over 164,000 people out of its 20 million residents. 
6. Is Nigeria distributing vaccines equitably? 
It's hard to tell — the government is yet to describe how it plans to vaccinate 70% of Nigerians by 2022.
“Our target is to vaccinate 100% of the eligible population. We plan that within the first year, we should be able to vaccinate up to 70% of the population and by the second year, vaccinate the remaining 30%,” Shuaib told CNBC in an interview.

Suleiman Babamanu's journey to Nigeria's largest solar project center started disappointingly.
After graduating from university, he worked as a geoscientist intern in a department of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Industrial work (Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa) was originally a traditional and profitable path. But he could not find a job.
That was around 2010, when the growth of global clean energy made it look like a potential career. In Nigeria, the industry did not gain much appeal. He put the idea on hold until a conversation with a family member convinced him to reconsider. He said: "My cousin told me not to go where the money is, but where the money is." "I immediately changed my mind and applied for a master's degree in renewable energy and got a scholarship." This got him in. He went to Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, and then returned to various public and private positions in the renewable energy industry in his home country, including projects funded by the World Bank. Now, as the technical project leader of the Rural Electrification Bureau, he is one of the officials helping to implement Nigeria’s largest solar investment, which is part of the country’s Covid economic recovery plan. The Nai Nai Solar Project is also a step towards solving one of Nigeria’s biggest problems: the lack of reliable electricity.
According to the "Paris Climate Agreement", Nigeria pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2030. To achieve this goal, Nigeria’s goal is to source 30% of its energy from renewable energy sources. Looking ahead, 10% of the government's recovery of $5.6 billion in stimulating the pandemic will be used to install 5 million solar home systems. The goal is to provide electricity to 25 million people in rural communities that currently have no access to the grid.
With the help of Naia Solar, the government's goal is to solve the development problems caused by insufficient power supply and pollution caused by fuel generators (one of the most popular energy sources). Babamanu said: "Rural communities, businesses and people who use generators and even candles will have the opportunity to obtain a cleaner and more efficient energy supply." "Emissions will be greatly reduced."
The focus of this release will be to establish an independent connection that uses solar panels to charge batteries that can be used at any time, as well as a micro-grid, which works in a similar way but can meet greater needs. Both will operate separately from the national network.
The project will also provide low-interest government loans to bidders across the industry in lieu of contracts or grants to fund equipment and construction, which is contrary to Nigeria’s usual electrification methods. The business will repay the money borrowed from the customer’s income.
Adedeji Adeniran, a senior researcher at the Center for African Economic Research in Abuja, said: “The government is not only trying to use renewable energy as a tool to solve energy problems, but it can also alleviate poverty. This is a good habit.” "This shows that the sustainability agenda is being taken seriously."

Dr. Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, President of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) na im confirm di suspension to tori pipo.
"We suspend di strike about one hour ago. We dey responsible to Nigerians. Di goment done agree to some of our demands."
Earlier, di Nigerian goment bin sign Memorandum of Action (MoA) with di Resident Doctors - dis na di second MoA wey di two parties sign in two weeks.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, for interview too say, "di Saturday meeting become necessary to amend di first MoA wey dem bin sign with di striking doctors. In view of dis situation, we don set up five-man committe to harmonise di list of affected officers and dem give NARD 72 hours to produce valid list."
Di National Association of Resident Doctors bin start dia strike on April 1, 2021.
Di National Association of Resident Doctors get plenty demands from Federal goment wey include di immediate payment of salaries wey dem dey owe all House officers, regardless of quota system.
Dem dey also ask for upward review of di current hazard allowance to 50 per cent of consolidated basic salaries of all health workers and payment of di outstanding COVID-19 inducement allowance, especially for state-owned-tertiary Institutions, among oda demands.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rolled out an executive order on Friday aimed at curtailing the use of “vaccine passports,” or documentation to show proof of vaccination.
The order says government entities in Florida are prohibited from issuing "vaccine passports ... or other standardized documentation for the purpose of certifying an individual's COVID-19 vaccination status to a third party."
“Today I issued an executive order prohibiting the use of so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports," DeSantis, a Republican, said in a tweet. "The Legislature is working on making permanent these protections for Floridians and I look forward to signing them into law soon.”
n the order, DeSantis said that vaccination records are private information, “which should not be shared by mandate,” and that “vaccine passports reduce individual freedom and will harm patient privacy.”
Taking effect immediately, it also bans businesses from requiring customers to provide documentation verifying a Covid-19 vaccination or post-transmission recovery in order to gain access or service from the business.

This is the development as more than 652 million COVID-19 vaccine shots have been given worldwide – enough to vaccinate 4.3 percent of the global population. According to data from the COVID-19 Tracker dashboard captured for 3rd April, an estimated 17.2 million doses of the jabs are being administered daily. The data, compiled by bloomberg.com and monitored across 151 countries, showed that in Nigeria, 82,238 doses of the vaccines being administered daily. The Nigerian government plans to vaccinate 40 percent of the population in 2021 and and additional 30 percent by the end of 2022.

It seemed like a windfall in the campaign to vaccinate the world.
President Joe Biden last week announced $4 billion for a humanitarian program called COVAX — short for Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access plan — which aims to fairly distribute vaccines between rich countries and the developing world.
But in more than a dozen interviews, current and former officials involved with COVAX and experts with detailed knowledge of the plan suggest Biden's mountains of cash and rhetorical support will not address the real reasons behind the dire state of global vaccine inequality.
COVAX's efforts have been throttled not by a lack of money but a lack of supply. And so far the limited doses that are being made have mostly gone to the U.S. and other rich countries.
As it stands, parts of Africa, South America and Asia will not achieve widespread immunization until 2023 at the earliest, according to a recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit research group.
In a deeply unfair fight, COVAX has struggled to compete with its own largest donors — wealthy nationalistic governments whose ruthless tactics rarely match their altruistic rhetoric.
Some critics say Biden is repeating some of the same moves: pledging money and words to COVAX, but with the other hand grabbing the scarce supplies that it desperately needs.
"There is a sense that we've made some progress, from the U.S. giving no vaccines at all to it giving $4 billion — but that doesn't go far enough," Sharifah Sekalala, an associate professor of global health law at England's University of Warwick, said. "We need to reframe this entire discussion. What will help Americans the most is not vaccinating every American first."

Nigeria doesn’t contribute much to the global biotech industry which is estimated to be worth $833.34 billion with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of over 7.02% by 2027, but this is beginning to change.
The impending growth of Biotech in Nigeria has been aided by the covid-19 pandemic where it has been central to the response. At the forefront of this increased attention is 54gene, a Nigerian biotech startup that has attracted $20 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists who are betting big on the yet unexplored African genome.
54 gene’s rise coinciding with the covid-19 pandemic has increased the potential for the founding of more biotech startups and an influx of more venture capital. Unlike other VC backed verticals, biotech is a highly specialized field that requires significant training, qualifications and expertise. Success here is predicated on the difficult ability to develop and commercialize research findings from the laboratory bench.

White House coronavirus senior adviser Andy Slavitt warned Tuesday that governors who lift Covid-19 restrictions before enough people have been vaccinated are “playing with fire.”
Slavitt was quickly joined by a chorus of public health experts who told NBC News that governors risk sparking another wave of coronavirus infections if they move too fast to return to "normal life" by dispensing with proven Covid-19 protections like mask mandates.
"People seem to forget that while there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we aren’t out of the tunnel yet," added Summer Johnson McGee, who is dean of the University of New Haven's School of Health Sciences.
"If people resume their normal activities and restrictions are rolled back without reaching herd immunity, a fourth wave is guaranteed," McGee said. "When you combine spring break and increased travel with lifted restrictions and Covid fatigue, you have the perfect trifecta for another Covid wave."
The experts spoke out as Covid-19 case numbers have been spiking in Michigan and rising at an alarming rate in states like New Jersey, West Virginia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, even as the pace at which the vaccines are being distributed across the United States has rapidly accelerated under the Biden administration.
“Look, we’re not out of this pandemic yet. We still have an accelerating threat, and if you’ve been vaccinated, that’s wonderful, I’m really glad about that,” Slavitt told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. “But we also have to remember that there’s millions and millions of people who haven’t yet been vaccinated. And so, lifting all these restrictions, telling people not to wear masks, gathering in large crowds, that’s the equivalent of playing with fire.”
Dr. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, agreed.
"Even as vaccinations increase and we are seeing millions of people getting their shots, we are still not yet ready for normal life with big gatherings or life without masks," she said. "But, we are so, so close. And focusing on the task at hand of getting vaccines to as many people as possible every day while maintaining all of the safety protocols is still necessary."
The governors of states like Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Mississippi, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming have, in recent weeks, lifted economic restrictions and either loosened — or done away with — safety measures like mask mandates over the objections of most public health experts.
Without naming names, Slavitt said that “the governors around the country, some of them don’t want to have any role in the rescue of our country and our citizens,”
“And the real question is, are we going to participate in that rescue, like the response from the Biden administration, or are we going to just wait and hope science rescues us?” Slavitt said. “And I think we can all work together, we can beat this much quicker.”
Slavitt told Ruhle that the increasingly good news from the vaccination front has lulled too many Americans into the thinking the pandemic is almost over.
“Well look, it's just like last springtime,” Slavitt said. “You look outside, you know. You can't see the virus. You see the vaccinations. And all of that feels good.”
But the message from the Biden administration, Slavitt said, is “we have an accelerated threat, we are accelerating our response.” And, he added, Americans should “hold on for a couple more weeks at least.”
“Within three weeks, 90 percent of Americans will be within five miles of a vaccine, and 90 percent of Americans will be eligible for the vaccines, and by May 1, that will be 100 percent,” he said.
Public health officials, including those working with the Biden administration, have said that more than 70 percent of the total U.S. population (332.5 million) would have to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

The Bank of Industry (BOI) has predicted that the economy would ‘slowly’ recover from the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The economy will recover and as it recovers from the effect of the pandemic, I do see a period of some growth,” the bank’s Executive Director, Toyin Adeniji, forecast in a chat with The Guardian.
She said the country has had time to “build some business-friendly policies” that would boost Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) cluster. Adeniji was reacting to the improved reduction of business closures in the country.
According to the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), there was an 18 per cent decrease in November 2020 as against the 57 per cent tally of August.
The initiative was launched in 2016 to offer interest and collateral-free credit to the millions of MSMEs operating at the bottom of the Nigerian economic pyramid.
“We will continue to see these clusters coming. We are going to see some of the creative and innovations coming up by a way of funding and empowerment,” the BOI chief said, adding that the improvements would be enduring.
Although the pandemic had some adverse effects on businesses, Adeniji said increased digitalisation efforts as a result of industries adapting to the new normal, really assisted her organisation to achieve more.
She said GEEP was able to reach over two million beneficiaries with the help of digital platforms, build a database of more than seven million recipients and verify about five million of them through some “rigid” processes.
“Digitalisation also helps reduce cost and customisation,” the ED added. In September, BOI said it had a fully digitised loan record and bio-data of all 2,418,936 GEEP beneficiaries.
She stated that the programme relies heavily on technology to deliver its three loan products, namely TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni.


With the epidemic under control, our national economy is slowly recovering, and our lives will return to normal.

Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited on Thursday said it contributed N1.2 billion to the Federal Government’s COVID-19 effort to combat the pandemic.
The oil giant said it was also in discussion with the government on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines for Nigerians.
Mr Alex Aghedo, Executive General Manager, Operations Support Services, Total E&P Nigeria, made the disclosure at a virtual news conference.
He said: “Total and 30 other upstream operators in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry, led by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), donated N21 billion to the federal government’s COVID-19 effort.
“In the first phase, the donation covered three thematic areas, namely, provision of medical consumables; deployment of logistics and inpatient support services as well as medical infrastructure.
“Total’s contribution was $3.2 million (N1.2 billion). ”
According to him, the company also carried out other interventions including the donation of hospital beds, surgical ventilators, dialysis machines, and face masks to the Lagos and Rivers State Governments.
Aghedo said: “In collaboration with the Lagos Ministry of Health and our partners, we decided to build and donate a medical oxygen plant at the Gbagada General Hospital.
”We believe that this facility would be useful even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It would not only help improve the state’s capacity to care for COVID-19 patients but also further strengthen capacity to manage other conditions associated with oxygen deficiency.”
He said the facility was in the last stages of construction and would be handed over to the Lagos State Government very soon.

Airlines and other tourism-related businesses are pushing the White House to draw up a plan in the next five weeks to boost international travel and eliminate restrictions that were imposed early in the pandemic.
More than two dozen groups made their request in a letter to the White House on Monday.
They want people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to be exempt from testing requirements before entering the United States. They also want the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to say that vaccinated people can travel safely.
The groups say those and other steps will speed up the recovery of the travel and airline industries, which have been devastated by a plunge in travel during the pandemic.
U.S. air travel is already picking up. More than 1 million people have passed through U.S. airport checkpoints each of the last 11 days, with Sunday's total topping more than 1.5 million for the first time in more than a year. Passenger traffic is still below 2019 levels, however.
The organizations calling for relaxing international restrictions include the chief trade group for the nation's largest carriers, Airlines for America, the U.S. Travel Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They set a May 1 target for the government "to partner with us" on a plan to rescind year-old restrictions on international travel.
The groups cited the recent decline in reported new cases, hospitalizations and deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States. Nearly 45 million Americans, more than 13% of the population, have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to CDC figures.
"The time to plan for and chart a defined roadmap to reopen international travel is now," they wrote in a letter to White House virus-response coordinator Jeffrey Zients.
The White House did not comment but referred to remarks by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Monday. Walensky said the health agency is working on new guidance for people who are vaccinated, but raised concern about recent increases in new reported cases of coronavirus in many European countries.
"If we look at our European friends, we just don't want to be at this rapid uptick of cases again, and that is very possible that that could happen,' she said. "We are so close to vaccinating so many more people .... Now is not the time to travel."
The airline industry hopes to see the lifting of broad restrictions on travel between the United States and Europe, China and other regions that former President Donald Trump imposed last spring to curb spread of the virus. Most non-U.S. citizens who have been in Europe are barred from entering the country.
The airlines have been lobbying the Biden administration to take a leading role in developing standards for so-called vaccine passports that would allow people to travel freely if they are vaccinated and pass a test for COVID-19. The European Union last week proposed a digital health certificate, but the U.S. administration has demurred, saying it's up to the private sector.
In the past year, the federal government has approved $65 billion to help airlines cover most of their payroll costs in exchange for keeping workers employed, plus billions more in low-interest loans. Most recently, President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief package that included $15 billion for airlines.

Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, has revealed that scientists in the country have produced at least two vaccines which are ready for clinical trials.
He said the government is presently looking for resources to enable it to take the vaccines to clinical trials, after which it will be ready for entrepreneurs who can reproduce them.
He added that the ministry is looking to place one primary health centre in every political ward in the country.
He said this at the closing ceremony of the Technology and Innovation Expo in Abuja.
His words, “The Ministry of Health is honored to be able to work with the Ministry of Science and Technology. We have been able to work on vaccines; we have at least two candidate vaccines which we are looking for resources to take them to the level of clinical trial and after the clinical trials to entrepreneurs who will now boost the production of the vaccines.
“At the Ministry of Health, we are looking to place one primary health centre in every political ward. I will like to say that we have over 4000 at the moment with about 6000 to go; many of them will be in the rural areas and we will have to work with the building research agency to find the lowest costing of building using domestic technology and resources to be able to construct a large number of primary health care centres at a cost that will be affordable to us. We want to achieve as many of them during the period of the administration of Mr. President.”
In his closing remarks, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, said the output of the past four editions of the expo have led to the creation of many micro and small scale businesses in the country.
He said, “I am happy to inform you that the output of our past four editions of the expo have led to the creation of many micro and small scale businesses in our dear country. I invite the Organised Private Sector (OPS), to take advantage of the research results and prototypes showcased at the expo to create jobs for the people, reduce poverty and crime in the country as well as create wealth for both themselves and the nation.”

Speaking during the exercise, the Executive Secretary, Enugu State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. George Ugwu, stated that the decision to start with frontline health workers was in line with the protocol of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) to give priority to those heath personnel working in the isolation centres.
Dr. Ugwu confirmed that the state government received 65,410 doses of Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, following the historic event that took place at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, on Wednesday.
The Executive Secretary disclosed that his agency was ready for the vaccination and had trained the health personnel that will administer the vaccine, among other preparations. He revealed that over 102 members of the team would handle the exercise in this first phase.
Dr. Ugwu pointed out that the next stage of the vaccination, after the frontline health workers, would be for key stakeholders of political, religious and traditional institutions.
He explained that the first phase of the vaccination is also going to be focusing most on other health workers beyond the frontline health workers because of their vulnerability to diseases in the health establishments where they work.
The State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Emmanuel Ikechukwu Obi, had announced, when the state government took delivery of the vaccine, that vaccination would take place in four phases, explaining that the first phase will be administered effectively to frontline health workers, elderly people with underlying illnesses, and some key stakeholders in the state, among others “as already identified and announced in the news”.

The Rivers State Government has begun the first phase of COVID-19 vaccination in the state to curb the spread of the viral infection.
Inaugurating the exercise on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, Governor Nyesom Wike described it as “historic” in the fight against COVID-19.
Mr Wike said the outbreak of the pandemic has greatly affected the livelihood and health of citizens.
“We are, therefore, thankful to God to have another layer of medical intervention in the form of a vaccine to help reduce infection, promote immunity and restore social confidence,” he said.
The governor, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, said the state government’s effort in containing the disease was strategic after the state recorded its first case on March 25, 2020.
Mr Wike said, in both waves of the pandemic, the state government synergised with the private sector and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to achieve an acceptable level of public health.
“The vaccine used in this campaign has received authorisation by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and are, therefore, effective and safe for administration.
“They will help reduce disease transmission, disease severity, and death from COVID-19.
“I, therefore, encourage you to follow the guidelines for the vaccine roll-out and avail yourselves of the opportunity to be protected from this deadly virus and to protect others,” he said.
The governor explained that the first phase of the vaccination was mainly for frontline healthcare workers and strategic leaders, saying more citizens would get vaccinated in the following weeks.The state’s Commissioner for Health, Princewill Chike, commended Mr Wike for his “dogged response and strategic leadership” in fighting COVID-19 in the state.
“With a particular test of COVID-19 costing N50,000 for now, Rivers State has collected over 135,000 samples, and the cost was borne by the state government,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that government functionaries, including the deputy governor, the attorney-general, State chairperson of Peoples Democratic Party were vaccinated.
Also vaccinated were the state’s Commissioner for Health, Chief of Staff to the governor and the Commissioner for Energy and Natural Resources, among others.

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) Health and Human Services Secretariat has advised every eligible Nigerian to take the COVID-19 vaccine to curtail further spread of the virus in the country.
Acting Secretary of the secretariat, Dr Mohammed Kawu, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of (Nigeria NAN), on Sunday in Abuja.
Kawu stated that the country would not be considered safe until 70 per cent of the nation’s population were vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic.
He explained that the brand of COVID-19 vaccine currently being used in Nigeria was safe and efficacious.
According to him, what the vaccine does is to prevent the virus or infection from becoming a disease from the jam in one’s system causing damage that will result into disease that will lead either to admission or dead.
“ That is what the vaccine does and that is why everybody needs the vaccine.’’
Kawu said people from 17 years and above would require the vaccination because the vaccine would elicit a reaction that produce immunity and antibodies that would fight with the virus, “if you eventually get infected so you will not have the disease.
” That is the reason why we have to take COVID-19 vaccine.
“The President of this country, the Vice President and all the political leaders of this country have taken the vaccine, if it is not safe we are not that bad as to allow our President, governors and other political leaders take this vaccine.
“You can be assured that AstraZeneca vaccine is safe. This vaccine is coming from a 21 year old company, established in 1990 in United Kingdom Cambridge.
“It is not a Third World vaccine production facility as so many people are saying. AstraZeneca vaccine is produced by the company which is a UK and Swedish based companies, that merged in 1990 to form the company.’’
Kawu also said that the vaccine was procured from a very reliable source, adding that United Kingdom and other European countries were taking the same vaccine.
“UK is presently taking AstraZeneca vaccine in spite of the hitches they got in Sweden and one other country that have withheld the administration of this vaccine.
“UK said as far as they are concern they have not seen or heard any side effects that warrants stoppage of the vaccine. The vaccine is as potent and safe as required.
“The problem that other countries got was some people develop thromboembolism which is common in UK. Probably a coincidence, probably is one of the side effects they are not sure,” he said.
According to him. they want to investigate further with the batch that they are using and the batch is ABC 1530.
“And, that is not the batch we are using in this country and that is not the batch UK is using, Italy too is not using it.
” So, all these countries, as far as they are concern the one they are using, they have not seen any side effects that warrants stoppage. So, they are okay, they are comfortable.
“Let me also tell you the moment this vaccine has been produced it is under trial and testing the sample are send to all regulatory agencies of all countries including our NAFDAC,” he said.
According to him, NAFDAC has work on all the vaccines that have been produced in the world in case Nigeria wants to import them.
“After importing AstraZeneca vaccine before they were administered NAFDAC had to take sample from this batch that had been produced and processed to investigate the safety and all other parameters and they came out to say that the vaccine is perfect.

With direct payments hitting bank accounts as soon as this weekend, the newly passed American Rescue Plan is quickly going into effect, and President Joe Biden is headed on the road to educate the public on the benefits included in the massive $1.9 trillion law.
Next week, Biden will set off to give his sales pitch as part of the "Help is Here" tour, backed up by Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and members of his Cabinet -- all taking part in the effort to secure credit and continue to build support for the massive spending plan.
"In the coming weeks, Jill and I, and Kamala on Doug, and our Cabinet, with all of you, members of Congress, we’re gonna be traveling the country to speak directly to the American people about how this law is going to make a real difference in their lives and how help is here for them. Almost every single aspect would be significant ... every one of those pieces standing alone would be viewed as a significant accomplishment," Biden said at a Friday afternoon Rose Garden event to celebrate the bill's passage.
In a memo to White House senior staff obtained by ABC News, deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon outlined the outreach efforts included in the tour, which will focus on "10 key aspects of the bill," including helping veterans, halving child poverty, bolstering rural health care and supporting small businesses.
"We’ll be putting surrogates and senior administration officials on local TV in markets around America. We’ll mobilize our coalition of over 400 supportive mayors and governors – Democrats and Republicans alike – to talk about what the plan means for them and their communities. We’ll continue to engage organized labor, the business community, and other groups, to reinforce why the Rescue Plan is vital in getting Americans back to work," O’Malley Dillion wrote.

The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has said it cannot make COVID-19 vaccination compulsory for 2021 intending pilgrims. 
The Commission’s Chairman, Alhaji Zikrullah Hassan, revealed this during an interactive session to mark the Fourth Board of NAHCON’s one year in office in Abuja. 
He, however, said the Commission was working with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to ensure all intending pilgrims were vaccinated if the Saudi Arabian authorities made it a condition for participation.
He expressed hope 2021 hajj would take place with the recent procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. 
“If the Saudi government insists that vaccine is a condition for participation and any prospective pilgrim says he or she will not take the vaccine, we will simply ask the person to go back and re-apply when the Saudi government changes its decision. But, we cannot compel anybody to take the vaccine,” he said.
Hassan said many Nigerians were already keying into the hajj savings scheme, adding that with the savings scheme, 60 per cent of hajj operations’ challenges would be solved. 
He noted the Commission was prioritising training its staff to boost their productivity and also launched a digital transformation master plan, which would increase efficiency in service delivery to Nigerian pilgrims.

The $1,400 stimulus checks included in the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill passed by the Senate over the weekend could be sent to millions of Americans by the end of the month, the White House said Monday.
Speaking to reporters, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the Treasury Department was still “working on” the exact timeline of the rollout but that the White House expected “a large number of Americans to receive relief by the end of the month.”
Psaki added that “an update” on that timeline would likely come from the Treasury Department.
She declined to say whether Biden’s signature would appear on the checks.
The $1.9 trillion bill passed by the Senate on Saturday included for many Americans direct payments of up to $1,400 per person, $300-per-week in jobless benefits through the summer and a child allowance of up to $3,600 for one year.
The Senate's changes to the House-passed version of the plan included limited eligibility for the $1,400 checks by capping the payments for those who make $80,000, or $160,000 for couples.
Before it can be signed by President Joe Biden, the legislation will have to be passed again by the House because of changes the Senate made to its version. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has said the chamber would vote Tuesday on the Senate-passed legislation.
Biden on Friday called the aid package "urgently needed" and praised the Senate for passing it Saturday, saying it will get "checks out the door" to Americans "this month."

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, his deputy Yemi Osinbajo, as well as frontline health workers have been scheduled to receive the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX Facility to the country, an official said on Thursday.
Faisal Shuaib, the executive director of the National Primarily Health Care Development Agency, which is coordinating the administering of vaccines in Nigeria, told reporters at a press briefing in Abuja that the frontline health workers would be vaccinated on Friday at the National Hospital, Abuja, while Buhari and Osinbajo would get their own shots on Saturday.
“The plan is to vaccinate the frontline health workers that work in the treatment center of the National Hospital,” Shuaib said.
“After that, the plan is to vaccinate the president, vice president and strategic leaders on Saturday,” he said.
The country on Tuesday received 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccines, the much-awaited first batch of vaccines from the COVAX Facility.
It is the first of such shipments expected to be made to Nigeria in the efforts to control the spread of the COVID-19.
“We are hopeful that when Nigerians see leaders like the president and vice president take this vaccine, it will increase their confidence around the safety of the vaccines,” Shuaib added.

Catholic leaders are urging the faithful to avoid the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine if they can because it is produced using cell lines derived from abortions decades ago.
But the vaccines themselves do not contain fetal tissue and the manufacturing lines use lab-grown cells — not the initial tissue.
“There is no remnant of the original abortion in the cell line,” said Barry Bloom, former dean and Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson professor of public health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The Vatican in December said it is “morally acceptable” to get COVID-19 vaccines, citing the harm from the pandemic and the fact that recipients did not play a role in the long-ago abortions that sparked the cell lines. But the Archdiocese of New Orleans kicked off a debate this week by dubbing the J&J vaccine “morally compromised,” as the Catholic Church opposes abortion.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops followed suit by saying “if one has the ability to choose a vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines should be chosen over Johnson & Johnson’s.”
The debate is swirling even as federal and state officials urge Americans to take whatever vaccine they can, including the newly approved J&J vaccine.
The J&J version requires one dose instead of two and should accelerate efforts to wrangle the deadly pandemic. An initial shipment of nearly 4 million doses went out this week.

AUSTIN, TEXAS - Texas is lifting its mask mandate, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday, making it the largest state to no longer require one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The announcement in Texas, where the virus has killed more than 42,000 people, rattled doctors and big city leaders who said they are now bracing for another deadly resurgence. One hospital executive in Houston said he told his staff they would need more personnel and ventilators.
Federal health officials this week urgently warned states to not let their guard down, warning that the pandemic is far from over.
Abbott, a Republican, has faced sustained criticism from his party in America's biggest red state over the statewide mask mandate — which was imposed eight months ago — as well as business occupancy limits that Texas will also scuttle next week. The mask order was only ever lightly enforced, even during the worst outbreaks of the pandemic.
"Removing statewide mandates does not end personal responsibility," said Abbott, speaking from the crowded dining room of a restaurant in Lubbock, surrounded by several people not wearing masks.
"It's just that now state mandates are no longer needed," he said.
The repeals will take effect March 10.
The full impact of Texas' reversal was still coming into focus. Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, said he had no immediate plans to change the limits on fans at home games. Their biggest crowd so far this season was about 3,000 spectators.
Restaurant owners began confronting whether they, too, would relax COVID-19 safeguards in their dining rooms. And school administrators scrambled to figure out how the end of the mask mandate would impact the state's 5 million public school students.
"While we've made significant progress, I'd hate to have that go away," said Tinku Saini, the CEO of Tarka Indian Kitchen, which has locations across Texas. He said Abbott's announcement left him with mixed feelings, and that he would now allow customers to go maskless but still require face coverings for staff and keep tables spread apart.
Abbott joins a growing number of governors across the U.S. who are easing coronavirus restrictions. Like the rest of the country, Texas has seen the number of cases and deaths plunge. Hospitalizations are at the lowest levels since October, and the seven-day rolling average of positive tests has dropped to about 7,600 cases, down from more than 10,000 in mid-February.
Only California and New York have reported more COVID-19 deaths than Texas.
"Absolutely reckless," California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, tweeted in response to Abbott's announcement.
Texas is doing away with the restrictions just ahead of the spring break holiday, which health experts worry could lead to more spread as people travel.
"The fact that things are headed in the right direction doesn't mean we have succeeded in eradicating the risk," said Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers, a professor of integrative biology and director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium.
She said the recent deadly winter freeze in Texas that left millions of people without power — forcing families to shelter closely with others who still had heat — could amplify transmission of the virus in the weeks ahead, although it remains too early to tell. Masks, she said, are one of the most effective strategies to curb the spread.
The top county leader in Houston, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, called the announcement "wishful thinking" and said spikes in hospitalizations have followed past rollbacks of COVID-19 rules.
"At worst, it is a cynical attempt to distract Texans from the failures of state oversight of our power grid," said Hidalgo, a Democrat.
Dr. Joseph Varon, chief medical officer at Houston's United Memorial Medical Center, said he called the hospital's top leaders immediately after Abbott's announcement and said they will need more staff and ventilators.
"I am just concerned that I am going to have a tsunami of new cases," Varon said. "I truly hope I am wrong. But, unfortunately, history seems to repeat itself."
Early in the pandemic, Abbott stripped local officials of their power to implement tougher COVID-19 restrictions, but now says counties can impose "mitigation strategies" if virus hospitalizations exceed 15% of all hospital capacity in their region. However, Abbott forbade local officials from imposing penalties for not wearing a face covering.
Retailers and other businesses will also still be allowed to impose capacity limits and other restrictions on their own.
Abbott imposed the statewide mask mandate in July during a deadly summer surge. But enforcement was spotty at best, and some sheriffs refused to police the restrictions at all. And as the pandemic dragged on, Abbott ruled out a return to tough COVID-19 rules, arguing that lockdowns do not work.
Politically, the restrictions elevated tensions between Abbott and his own party, with the head of the Texas GOP at one point leading a protest outside the governor's mansion. Meanwhile, mayors in Texas' biggest cities argued that Abbott wasn't doing enough.
Most of the country has lived under mask mandates during the pandemic, with at least 37 states requiring face coverings to some degree. But those orders are increasingly falling by the wayside: North Dakota, Montana and Iowa have also lifted mask orders in recent weeks.
In Texas, it was only last week that emergency restrictions on restaurants and businesses were relaxed in the Rio Grande Valley, which has been walloped by the virus like few other places in America.
"I appreciate Governor Abbott's desire to return to normalcy, but I remained concerned that, at least in Hidalgo County, we may be moving too quickly," Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said.

The National Economic Burden of Rare Disease Study conducted on behalf of the EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases took a first-of-its-kind look at the economic burden of rare diseases in the United States for the year 2019.
Because the study only examined the financial costs of 379 rare diseases, Annie Kennedy, Chief of Policy and Advocacy at EveryLife Foundation said the research is “only the tip of the iceberg” of the overall economic burden in the rare disease community. In an interview with BioBuzz ahead of the study’s release, Kennedy said it was critical to establish the hard data in order to ensure the conversation can move from “anecdotal evidence to what the actual economic cost of rare disease is.”
The study includes both direct medical costs, as well as indirect costs that affect the families of these patients. Of that $966 billion, $418 billion (43%) was in direct medical costs, while $548 billion (57%) was in indirect costs, the study shows. Direct medical costs include inpatient and outpatient services and prescription medications, while indirect medical costs include employee absenteeism, forced retirement, and healthcare services not covered by insurance.
Kennedy said it was important for this study to show the indirect costs since so many of these are silently borne by the families of the patients. Prior to the study, Kennedy, a longtime advocate for the rare disease community, said they were not surprised the indirect economic burden was higher than the direct costs of rare diseases.
“For families, these are costs that accumulate. This is a one-year snapshot and it doesn’t show the whole picture of living with rare disease,” Kennedy said. “There’s so much more to this story.”
The survey shows that on average, the per-person excess direct medical cost of rare disease is $26,887 more than that for comparison individuals without a rare disease. The average annual direct medical excess cost for a child with a rare disease is $32,037, $29,647 for working-age adults with a rare disease, and $21,772 for rare disease patients age 65 and older.
The highest per-person excess medical cost is for “Lysosomal storage diseases” regardless of the age group. The study shows the cost breakdown at $132,757 for children and $54,996 for adults. The second most expensive rare disease group among children based on per-person excess costs is “Other endocrine or metabolic disorders,” which has an average excess medical cost of $72,285. Among adults, the second most expensive group is “Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs,” which has an average cost of $52,201.
The estimated total indirect and non-medical cost of rare disease was $548 billion in 2019, with $343 billion to persons with rare diseases and another $205 billion to unpaid caregivers.
To create the study, EveryLife Foundation, a rare disease policy organization based in Washington, D.C., had more than 100 patient organizations work with them to identify data points to collect. The organization conducted a survey of rare disease families and received a response from 3,484 households. Of those, 1,409 (40.4%) completed the survey.
Of those 39 respondents were not included because the name of the disease entered was not considered a rare disease, which is defined by the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. The diseases included in the new report include some of the more prevalent rare diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and hemophilia, but also included ultra-rare diseases, Kennedy said.
The National Institutes of Health estimates there are between 25 million and 30 million Americans living with a rare disease. Although it is expected there are about 7,000 rare diseases, only a few in the U.S. are actually tracked with International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes.

The U.S. is still ramping up its vaccination program, hoping to finally clamp down on the COVID-19 pandemic. But even as vaccine doses are being rolled out, their makers are exploring several strategies to bolster them, hoping to protect people against worrying new variants that have sprung up in recent months, from South Africa to the U.K.
The companies that have FDA-authorized vaccines are currently working on the problem, out of concern that mutations in SARS-CoV-2 could make the virus more difficult to control. Several strains seem to spread more easily than older forms of the coronavirus. There are also concerns that some mutated versions could elude antibody responses that would normally protect people who have been immunized or previously infected.
Here's an overview of the approaches being pursued by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech and Moderna – the drugmakers with U.S.-authorized vaccines – along with Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine is now poised for FDA authorization:
Booster shots of the existing vaccine: This approach relies on giving people who have already been vaccinated a follow-up dose of the same vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech calls for people who have already completed the normal two-dose regimen to get a third 30-microgram dose, 6-12 months later. Moderna's plan calls for a 50-microgram dose, after people have gone through its two-dose regimen.
Variant-specific booster shot: Much like how specific vaccines are tailored to fight influenza, drugmakers can craft a version of their vaccine to combat individual coronavirus variants. Moderna says its new vaccine candidate, based on the strain first identified in South Africa, is now ready for clinical testing. The company says it has shipped doses of that potential vaccine to the National Institutes of Health to get started.
Last month, Paul Stoffels, the chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, said his company is also preparing a special version of its vaccine to target the spike protein found in the B.1.351 seen in South Africa.
A 'multivalent' booster: In this approach, drug companies essentially blend two versions of their vaccines into a single booster shot. One would target original or "ancestral" versions of SARS-CoV-2, while the other would go after new variants. Moderna says it will look at combining its original vaccine – known as mRNA-1273 – with the newer version it created to fight the B.1.351 coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa.
Putting the boosters front-and-center: As drugmakers tweak their original vaccines to respond more acutely to variants, they will also consider whether new versions of their vaccines might effectively replace the initial recipes. Moderna says it will explore whether its variant-specific booster and its multivalent booster should become the primary vaccination series of shots for people who haven't been exposed to the coronavirus.
In the future, different circumstances will likely determine which vaccine or booster a person receives.
Someone who has antibodies from a previous infection or immunization would probably only get a booster shot, for instance, while someone whose system hasn't been exposed to the coronavirus would receive "an updated vaccine that aims to provide immunity to both the ancestral strains and variants of concern," Moderna said on Thursday, during a call with investors.
It's also possible people could receive a vaccine that's tailored to variants that have been detected in their country.
Johnson & Johnson's new vaccine was found to be 66% effective at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19 – a result that reflects testing in numerous countries, including South Africa and Brazil, where troubling new variants have emerged.
Current versions of their vaccines work against the new COVID-19 strains, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson say. Health experts also stress that all three of the vaccines are overwhelmingly effective in preventing the worst outcomes, such as hospitalizations and deaths. Still, newly tailored versions of the vaccines may be needed, as strains of SARS-CoV-2 continue to mutate and combine.
"While we have not seen any evidence that the circulating variants result in a loss of protection provided by our vaccine, we are taking multiple steps to act decisively and be ready in case a strain becomes resistant to the protection afforded by the vaccine," Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla said in a statement about his company's plans to study boosters' effect on variants.
Pharmaceutical companies are studying boosters out of caution, Bourla added, to make sure they have an answer in the pipeline for an evolving coronavirus — and to ensure they have a path for emergency authorization if an updated vaccine or booster becomes necessary.
"This regulatory pathway is already established for other infectious diseases like influenza," said Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech.
Both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech created their vaccines using relatively new messenger RNA technology, which has been hailed for its ability to produce vaccine candidates quickly. That swift process, the drug makers say, can also help them produce new versions of their vaccines in response to coronavirus mutations.
Citing the speed and flexibility of mRNA, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said on Thursday that his company "is committed to making as many updates to our vaccine as necessary until the pandemic is under control."
In contrast, Johnson & Johnson used a viral vector technique to make its vaccine, using the same strategy as the AstraZeneca / University of Oxford team. The approach is known to take longer than mRNA, but the resulting vaccine can also give patients immunity after a single dose.
Along with providing protection against new coronavirus variants, another potential benefit of booster shots, drug makers say, is that they can prolong or enhance protection even at smaller doses than the original regimen, easing some of the pressure on strained production and distribution networks.



I hope that vaccine manufacturers can produce vaccines that can deal with the mutant virus as soon as possible

The supply of Covid-19 vaccine in the United States is expected to substantially increase next month with manufacturers doubling the pace of production, company executives said in prepared remarks to be delivered to Congress on Tuesday.
Pfizer expects to provide more than 13 million doses of its two-shot vaccine per week to the U.S. by mid-March, more than double the weekly number of doses the company was sending earlier this month, Pfizer Chief Business Officer John Young said in written testimony. The testimony was released ahead of a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Young also said Pfizer is on track to deliver 120 million doses by the end of March, with an additional 80 million doses to go out by the end of May.
Moderna President Dr. Stephen Hoge said his company is similarly working to double its shipments to the U.S. by April, according to Hoge’s prepared testimony. Moderna hopes to deliver 40 million doses per month, roughly double the current pace, he said.
“Since the end of 2020, we have doubled our monthly deliveries to the U.S. government, and we are working to double them again by April to more than 40 million doses per month,” Hoge said. “As we work to meet these goals, we are continually learning and working closely with our partners and the federal government to identify ways to address bottlenecks and accelerate our production.”
He added in the document that if the Food and Drug Administration authorizes the company to add more doses of vaccine to each vial, it “would improve output.”
The U.S. supply is also expected to be helped by new manufacturers entering the fray. The FDA is scheduled to review Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine on Thursday. J&J Vice President of Medical Affairs Dr. Richard Nettles said in his prepared testimony that the company plans to ship more than 20 million doses to the U.S. by the end of March.
Nettles added that the company is confident it will provide 100 million doses in the first half of the year.
Taken together, the remarks indicate that the U.S. is on track to have received 240 million doses of vaccine by the end of March, enough to vaccinate about 130 million people.
That could be a huge boon to the vaccine rollout. State and local officials have said the biggest constraint has been the supply of doses from the federal government. More than 75.2 million doses have been delivered to states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and over 64.1 million doses have been administered.
The House hearing is slated to begin at 10:30 a.m. ET.

More than one in five people in the state of Lagos in Nigeria had Covid-19 antibodies at the end of October, according to a study that suggests infection rates were much higher across the country than previously thought.
Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control (NDCD) and the Institute for Medical Research collected blood samples from more than 10,000 individuals living in a representative sample of households in four states in September and October.
According to findings released on Monday, the prevalence of antibodies was 23% in the states of Lagos – which is home to more than 16 million people – and Enugu, 19% in Nasarawa state, and 9% in Gombe state. Confirmed infections stood in the tens of thousands at the time.
The findings offer the first detailed look into infections in Africa’s most populous country, where a lack of testing supplies has hampered the ability of authorities to fully ascertain the spread of the virus. Such seroprevalence studies are seen as the only way of revealing the actual burden of Covid-19 in Africa.
New variants were emerging quickly in Nigeria, the NCDC said, and would continue to do so until transmission rates fell.
Up to now the country has recorded just 1,800 deaths from Covid, but the head of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the study findings meant it was “even more important” that Nigeria secured vaccines. Nigeria, like other countries in Africa, has struggled to secure vaccine doses amid fierce global competition.
Nigerian health officials recently approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the country and on Monday requested 10m vaccine doses from the African Union (AU) and the World Health Organization Covax programme – a platform working to secure vaccines for African countries. But authorities have not made clear when the vaccines will arrive.
The AU has said it has secured a provisional 270m vaccine doses from manufacturers for member states. The World Health Organization’s Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti, said last week African countries could begin to receive the first doses by the end of March, with larger deliveries by June.
On Monday, the World Health Organization sharply criticised wealthy countries for not only hogging Covid vaccines but in doing so, hindering the pathway for poorer nations to get them too.
The WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said some rich countries’ direct deals with manufacturers had meant that previously-agreed vaccine allocations for poorer countries, via the Covax programme, were being reduced.
The UN health agency chief said money was available to procure doses for some of the poorest countries, following fresh contributions from the US, the European Union and Germany – but it was worthless if there was nothing to buy.
Tedros urged wealthy nations to check whether their own deals with pharmaceutical companies were undermining Covax. “Even if you have the money, if you cannot use the money to buy vaccines, having the money doesn’t mean anything,” he told a virtual press conference with the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The Federal Government through the Health Minister has disclosed that the country may get vaccines in 10 days.
The Health Minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire, disclosed this in a meeting in Lagos on Saturday.
Ehanire disclosed that the vaccines are expected are coming from 5 countries in 10 days’ time.
“We are told that by the end of this month, which is about 10 days from now, we shall get the vaccines.
“We do not produce the vaccines. They are manufactured abroad in about four or five countries,’’ he told newsmen at the end of an inspection tour of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi-Araba.
He added that the only African nation manufacturing vaccine is South Africa, adding that nations with the capacity to manufacture had their own challenges and had to vaccinate their population first.
“South Africa has a license to make the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, while Russia only recently gave India the licence to produce AstraZeneca,” the minister said.
The Minister also added that Nigeria had the operational capacity for the distribution of vaccines.

ABUJA, Nigeria—Since the start of the year, Zimbabwe's oldest cemetery has been extremely busy. Gravediggers are having to dig over a dozen graves on a daily basis at the Warren Hills Cemetery in the capital, Harare, as the number of deaths from coronavirus continue to grow at disturbing rates.
“The number of daily burials at the cemetery has almost quadrupled since the beginning of 2021,” Stephen Bwalya, a commercial taxi driver who lives close to the cemetery, told The Daily Beast. “Most of the victims died from coronavirus.”
In the last two months, Zimbabwe has witnessed a drastic increase in the number of coronavirus infections and deaths. About 35,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths have so far been confirmed—a huge spike from the 14,000 infections and 369 deaths recorded on New Year’s Day.
But those numbers are surely vast undercounts since testing has been very limited in the country, where decades of economic decline has left it with little resources to tackle the outbreak.
At a major public hospital in Harare, nurses have gone on strike in protest over the death of colleagues who lost their lives as a result of a lack of personal protective equipment, and coronavirus patients have been told to buy their own ventilators as hospitals have run out of oxygen. Even the country’s very influential elites, who can barely travel abroad for treatments owing to a number of measures and restrictions countries have put in place to tackle the spread of COVID-19, have been forced to confront the realities of Zimbabwe’s pathetic health sector. Already, four of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet ministers have been killed by COVID-19.
“The biggest concern is the fact that many of those who need testing can’t get tested because the government is unable to test so many people,” said Bwalya. “Among the people buried at the cemetery are those who died after showing symptoms of COVID-19 but they were never tested.’
Zimbabwe isn’t the only African nation with concerns about hidden coronavirus deaths.