₦airaland Forum

WSU students are designing a portable gasifier system to turn waste into electricity in Nigerian households.
The systems are currently used in industrial plants in developed countries, said Corey Ndifon, WSU engineering senior and CEO of the team. They power big cities, but the idea of the project is to make the system available on a smaller scale for individual households in Nigeria and then, hopefully, other developing countries.
Gasification is a process that uses an engine to convert solid waste, garbage and trash into gases like nitrogen and oxygen that can be used for energy, said Philip Virtue, WSU engineering senior and chief technology officer of the team.
In order for the gasification system to work, the waste must be completely dry and not contain metals or mercury, Virtue said. The waste is then burned in an enclosed container.
The temperature inside the container must be at least 700 degrees Celsius, said Maximillian Obasiolu, WSU engineering senior and chief business development officer of the team.
The molecules must be heated at higher temperatures in order to break apart and release gases and energy, Ndifon said. Gasification burns everything in a furnace, and it is possible that some of the toxic gases can be released.
Deadly toxins, such as methane and carbon dioxide, are filtered out using filtering systems, Virtue said.
The team plans to create a design using solar panels as an alternative source to start the gasifier, and the risk of toxic gases being released into the atmosphere will be minimal with a filtration system that will be inserted in the entrance and exit of the device, Ndifon said.
Once the waste is converted to gas in the gasifier, it can be used as energy, he said.
Twenty pounds of trash can produce approximately 10 kilowatt-hours of energy per day, about one-third of the energy used daily in a typical home in America, Virtue said.
Without electricity, certain groups are at a disadvantage, Ndifon said. They have trouble producing agriculture, are not as connected to the rest of the world and websites, like Amazon, are not accessible.
“The end goal is to help the more rural regions of Nigeria, and other emerging nations, have stable electricity,” Ndifon said.
He said he came up with the idea for the project because he realized people could use the surplus of waste in Nigeria to create a much-needed energy source.
Both Ndifon and Obasiolu said they are from Nigeria and designed the system with Nigeria in mind after they met in an engineering course.
The work and market research for designing a portable gasification system began in August 2020, Ndifon said.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a setback because the Frank Innovation Zone on the WSU campus was forced to close, he said. The FIZ had the 3D printers, metal and wood workrooms needed to create the system. The group was instead forced to build the system in a garage, taking more time.
“We weren’t as well equipped as the FIZ,” Ndifon said. “It took longer and was more tedious.”
The gasification system will solve multiple problems, Virtue said. It will address waste management and lack of electricity in rural areas.
The gasifier system is not ready for the market yet. It will take a significant amount of funding to finish, Ndifon said.
He said the group received $5,000 from the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge at the University of Washington. They are planning on entering more competitions to raise money for the project.
Right now, they are revising their project design, Ndifon said. The group received feedback from the EIC competition and is fixing flaws in their original plan.
They were originally going to use a large turbine engine to run the system, but the complexity of the engine and possible complications were pointed out by the judges, Ndifon said. The system will instead have a smaller four-stroke engine, so the system is less complicated.
“Since we’re going to be essentially shipping a device to a foreign country, we want to make sure that if and when the device breaks, repairs on it are going to be as simple as possible,” Obasiolu said.
With a four-stroke engine, the device will be able to run for extended periods of time, but people can repair it more easily, Ndifon said.
Once the project is complete, the group plans to sell their gasifier to international nongovernmental organizations, specifically the United Nations Development Program because it has connections with commerce and transportation and will be able to disperse the system, he said.
Roughly $100,000 is still needed to design, build and transport the product by the end of 2021, Ndifon said.
“As far as technology goes, we can’t really do much more until we get more funding,” he said. “So we are really focused on the business side of [the project right now].”

The COVID-19 pandemic has served to save the Nigerian state of Niger N300 million (US$0.73 million), as the state paid for no outbound medical tourism in 2020.
According to the Niger State Commissioner for Health, Niger State saved over N300 million (US$0.73 million) that would have been spent on medical tourism in 2020. Estimates of the cost of outbound medical tourism to the country overall vary from US$400 million to US$2 billion.
Niger State has spent the savings on reviving the medical system, in an attempt to reduce future outbound medical travel costs. The Niger State Commissioner made the problem very clear; “In the Niger State Ministry of Health, we are trying to kill medical tourism abroad because if we do not kill it, it will kill the Ministry of Health. This is because the money taken for medical assistance abroad is taken from our overheads. It is horrible and has put the health sector in an emergency state. While domestic medical tourism is also very costly, we are very concerned about international medical tourism because 90% of people benefiting from international medical tourism are not using their resources but that of government.”
COVID-19 reduced international medical tourism, and that gave the national government room to reflect on how to revive the health system. Several new healthcare projects have been started.

A federal committee wants more data before it decides on the future of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the use of which was paused after reports of rare and severe blood clots.
Panel members said Wednesday they want to learn more about the risks, cause and frequency of the clots, which have been identified in six of the 7.5 million people who have received the shot. All the patients have been women. One of the six died in March, and another is in critical condition. Two have been discharged, and three remain in the hospital.
Other countries have already restricted use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot after European regulators flagged the vaccine as having potential links to extremely rare but potentially fatal blood clots.
After U.S. authorities recommended pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of similar clots, governments in Australia, Europe and South Africa began halting the shot’s rollout or scrapping plans to purchase more doses.

For more than a year, U.S. consulates across Mexico have categorized the damage caused by the coronavirus to the immigrant labor force in the U.S., once it was a desperate telephone conversation. Thousands of Mexicans in the United States have died of COVID-19, most of them undocumented immigrants who are considered "important workers" by the state labor department. To some extent, the death rate in this community has soared by nearly 70%.

Research Nester released a report titled “United States (U.S.) Medical Coding Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2028” which delivers detailed overview of the United States (U.S.) medical coding market in terms of market segmentation by service mode, solution, classification, patient type and by end-user.
Further, for the in-depth analysis, the report encompasses the industry growth indicators, restraints, supply and demand risk, along with detailed discussion on current and future market trends that are associated with the growth of the market.
The United States (U.S.) medical coding market is segmented by classification into international classification of diseases (ICD), healthcare common procedure code system (HCPCS), current procedural terminology (CPT), international classification of functioning, disability & health (ICF), and diagnostic-related groups (DRGs), out of which, the international classification of diseases (ICD) segment with respect to diagnostic centers is projected to register the largest share of 67.85% of the market in the year 2021.
This type of medical coding classification is used for classifying and monitoring causes of mortality and morbidity and is used widely in the healthcare sector. Additionally, the segment is anticipated to grab the largest market share owing to the frequent update of ICD classification systems. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), ICD-11, which is the latest version, was adopted in May 2019 by the Seventy-second World Health Assembly. The version of this classification would come into effect on the 1st of January 2022.
The United States (U.S.) medical coding market is forecasted to grow with a CAGR of 8.8% during the forecast period, i.e., 2020-2028. Increasing implementation of IT in the healthcare sector for real-time data monitoring, along with the growing utilization of data analytics, and the advent in data enrichment tools, such as mobile health or mHealth and electronic health records (EHRs), among others, are some of the major factors anticipated to promote the market growth in the coming years. Additionally, the for United States (U.S.) medical coding market, which recorded a value of USD 4050.4 million in the year 2019, is further projected to cross USD 4500 million by the end of 2021.
In the statistics by the World Bank, in the United States, the current healthcare expenditure between 2000 and 2018 increased by around 35% of the GDP of the nation.
With the increasing expenditure of the U.S. government in the healthcare sector, the number of healthcare service providers, along with the need amongst people for quality healthcare services has increased massively. As a result, there is also a growing need amongst the healthcare organizations to streamline their revenue cycle operations, which is raising the need for medical coding services. On the other hand, the rising number of healthcare frauds in the nation, which according to the estimates of National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA), creates a financial loss of around 3% of the total health care expenditure, is further raising the need for the adoption of medical coding services so as to properly follow hospital management protocols. Such factors are anticipated to drive the market growth in the coming years.

Michigan public health officials say 246 people tested positive for the coronavirus two weeks or more after becoming fully vaccinated – and three have died. Lynn Sutfin, spokeswoman for the state health department, told USA TODAY in an email that the positive tests represent a small fraction of 1% of the 1.7 million vaccinated across the state. Two of the three deaths occurred within three weeks of completing the vaccine, she said. All three were 65 or older.
“While the majority of the population develops full immunity within 14 days of completion of their vaccine series, a small proportion appear to take longer to mount a full antibody response,” Sutfin wrote.

Nigerian Government on Thursday said it is proposing about 296 billion naira for the purchase of coronavirus vaccines.
“The Federal Ministry of Health has proposed the sum of 296 billion Naira for the purchase of Vaccines to cover 2021 and 2022,” the Nigerian government tweeted on Thursday.
“A supplementary budget will be sent to the National Assembly in due course,” it added.
Nigeria’s primary health care agency boss Faisal Shuaib on Wednesday told Reuters that he expects a supplementary budget would be presented to lawmakers within the next two weeks.
Nigeria, which has recorded over 2,000 deaths from COVID-19 and began vaccinations this month, plans to inoculate 40% of its people this year and another 30% in 2022.
Nigeria hopes to receive up to 70 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine this year through the African Union (AU).
It expects to initially receive 30 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in July through the AU.
“We’re hoping that we’ll be able to get up to 70 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson this year. This is yet to be finalised but these are some of the advanced conversations that are going on between Nigeria and the African Union,” he said during an interview in the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria previously said it had applied for 41 million doses  through the AU, comprising of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson shots. But Shuaib said the proportion of AstraZenca doses was likely to be reduced by the delays.
“Some of the allocations that we were supposed to get for the AstraZeneca will be replaced by the Johnson and Johnson,” he said, adding that this was yet to be finalised.
Nigeria took delivery of 3.92 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in March and have since started giving the shots to eligible Nigerians.

The Federal Government has rejected plans by the Senate to upgrade some medical facilities to tertiary health institutions in Adamawa State.
The Senate is proposing three bills to give legal backing to the upgrade of the health institutions.
The bills are the National Dermatology Hospital, Garkida Adamawa, Establishment Bill 2021; Teaching Hospital for the Modibbo Adama University, Yola and Federal Medical Centres Establishment Bill. They were sponsored by the Senator representing Adamawa Central, Aisha Dahiru Ahmed Binani.
The Minister of State for Health, Olorunnimbe Mamora, in his presentation at the opening of a two-day event on the bills on Monday, said the sponsors should have sought and obtained presidential approval before coming up with the proposed legislations.
He said there were already 22 teaching hospitals and that others were still coming on stream.
He noted that the 1995 Act establishing teaching hospitals states in Section 1 (3) empowers only the president to give approval for their establishment.
"What we're saying is that proposing a bill to amend the teaching hospitals Act to include the name of a non-existent hospital is like 'putting the cart before the horse."
The minister also kicked against the establishment of a national hospital for dermatology, saying "as much as it's important to pay attention to the issue of dermatology, we also know that establishing a hospital for dermatology condition will affect patients' opportunities to be co-managed by other specialties."
The chairman of the committee, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, however, said the National Assembly has powers to make laws for the establishment of federal health institutions.

Health authorities on Monday confirmed seven more coronavirus-related deaths and 104 new infections amid an ongoing vaccination campaign in Nigeria.
“Till date [Sunday], 162,593 cases have been confirmed, 150,308 cases have been discharged and 2,048 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory,” Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said in its latest update.
More than 1.72 million tests have been done since March last year in country of 200 million population.
Amid fears over vaccine safety, the vaccination campaign, launched on March 5 and backed by the president and federal government, is keeping encouraging people receive shots. Currently, health professionals and other frontline workers as well as officials are being vaccinated.
So far, 513,626 people have been vaccinated in the West African country, according to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency.
Earlier this month, Abuja received 4 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the use of which have been suspended by several European countries after a small number of people reported blood clots after receiving the jab.
However, the EU’s drugs agency said that the use of the AstraZeneca is safe and it is effective.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States squandered both money and lives in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective health strategy and trimmed federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while still supporting those who needed it.
That is the conclusion of a group of research papers released at a Brookings Institution conference this week, offering an early and broad start to what will likely be an intense effort in coming years to assess the response to the worst pandemic in a century.
U.S. COVID-19 fatalities could have stayed under 300,000, versus a death toll of 540,000 and rising, if by last May the country had adopted widespread mask, social distancing, and testing protocols while awaiting a vaccine, estimated Andrew Atkeson, economics professor at University of California, Los Angeles.
He likened the state-by-state, patchwork response to a car’s cruise control. As the virus worsened people hunkered down, but when the situation improved restrictions were dropped and people were less careful, with the result that “the equilibrium level of daily deaths ... remains in a relatively narrow band” until the vaccine arrived.
Atkeson projected a final fatality level of around 670,000 as vaccines spread and the crisis subsides. The outcome, had no vaccine been developed, would have been a far-worse 1.27 million, Atkeson estimated.
The economic response, while mammoth, also could have been better tailored, argued University of California, Berkeley economics professor Christine Romer. She joins former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and several others from the last two Democratic administrations in criticizing the spending authorized since last spring, including the Biden team’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
While she said the federal government’s more than $5 trillion in pandemic-related spending won’t likely trigger a fiscal crisis, she worries that higher-priority investments will be deferred because of allocations to initiatives like the Paycheck Protection Program.
Those forgivable small business loans were “an interesting and noble experiment,” but were also “problematic on many levels,” including an apparent cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars for each job saved, she said.
“Spending on programs such as unemployment compensation and public heath was exactly what was called for,” she wrote, but other aspects, particularly the generous one-time payments to families, were “largely ineffective and wasteful.”

Victims Support Programme (VSF) has explained that it decided to provide boreholes, hand washing machines and sanitisers in 54 secondary schools across the the country to support the fight against Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).
VSF, which was set up by the Federal Government to rehabilitate, settle and empower victims of terrorism in the North East, but had its scope widened in 2020 to accommodate other parts of the country following the ravaging COVID-19, stated that the idea was also to improve hygiene in secondary schools.
Speaking in Enugu State, during the commissioning of solar-powered boreholes, hand wash stations and other COVID-19 facilities, the Chairperson of VSF Taskforce on COVID-19, Mrs. Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, stated that three South East states of Abia, Enugu and Anambra benefitted.

About 1 in 4 New Yorkers has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to state data.
Nearly 7.5 million total doses, including more than 1 million over the past seven days, have been administered statewide, officials said Saturday. While over 5 million New Yorkers -- 25.3% of the state population -- have so far received at least one dose, 13% are fully vaccinated.
Nationwide, 23.3% of Americans have received at least one dose and 12.6% were fully vaccinated as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in New York include people age 60 and older, health care personnel, long-term care facility residents and staff, first responders, teachers and child care workers, public transit workers, grocery store and restaurant workers, people with certain underlying health conditions and, most recently, public-facing public employees.
In a statement, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York is "continuing our outreach across the state to address hesitancy and accessibility so that we can continue getting shots into people's arms as quickly as possible."
"In the meantime," he added, "it is essential that we continue to exercise basic safety protocols so we can continue to build on all the progress we've made on vaccinations."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. land borders with Canada and Mexico will remain closed to non-essential travel until at least April 21, the U.S. government said on Thursday.
The 30-day extension is the second announced under President Joe Biden and comes as U.S lawmakers in northern border states have urged lifting the nearly year-old restrictions to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a notice Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said the three countries have all “determined that non-essential travel ... poses additional risk of transmission and spread of the virus.” Canadian Public Safety Minister Bill Blair confirmed the extension of restrictions on Twitter.
Canada has shown little interest in lifting the restrictions and last month imposed new COVID-19 testing requirements for some Canadians returning at land crossings.
On Jan. 26, the U.S. government began requiring nearly all international air travelers to get negative COVID-19 test results within three days of travel but has no similar requirements for land border crossings.
The Biden administration has spent weeks reviewing whether to impose COVID-19 testing requirements for land border crossings but has not issued new requirements.
In an executive order in January, Biden directed U.S. officials to “immediately commence diplomatic outreach to the governments of Canada and Mexico regarding public health protocols for land ports of entry.”
U.S. lawmakers say Americans who own property in Canada cannot maintain their homes. Border towns and businesses have been hard hit by the lack of cross-border traffic.
Hundreds of thousands of people cross the U.S.-Mexico border daily, and Mexico has extremely limited COVID-19 testing capacity, U.S. officials say.
Representative Tom Massie of Kentucky said at a March 2 hearing a vacationing Kentucky family recently tested positive in Mexico for COVID-19 and could not return to the United States on a flight.
“They flew to Tijuana, walked across the border to the United States, got on an airplane in San Diego and then returned to Kentucky,” Massie said.

A Florida correctional officer polled his colleagues earlier this year in a private Facebook group: “Will you take the COVID-19 vaccine if offered?”
The answer from more than half: “Hell no.” Only 40 of the 475 respondents said yes.
In Massachusetts, more than half the people employed by the Department of Correction declined to be immunized. A statewide survey in California showed that half of all correction employees will wait to be vaccinated. In Rhode Island, prison staff have refused the vaccine at higher rates than the incarcerated, according to medical director Dr. Justin Berk. And in Iowa, early polling among employees showed a little more than half the staff said they’d get vaccinated.
As states have begun COVID-19 inoculations at prisons across the country, corrections employees are refusing vaccines at alarming rates, causing some public health experts to worry about the prospect of controlling the pandemic both inside and outside. Infection rates in prisons are more than three times as high as in the general public. Prison staff helped accelerate outbreaks by refusing to wear masks, downplaying people’s symptoms, and haphazardly enforcing social distancing and hygiene protocols in confined, poorly ventilated spaces ripe for viral spread.
This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and The Marshall Project exploring the state of the prison system in the coronavirus pandemic. Nicole Lewis, Beth Schwartzapfel and Tom Meagher reported for The Marshall
The Marshall Project and The Associated Press spoke with correctional officers and union leaders nationwide, as well as with public health experts and doctors working inside prisons, to understand why officers are declining to be vaccinated, despite being at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. Many employees spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared they would lose their jobs if they spoke out.
In December and January, at least 37 prison systems began to offer vaccines to their employees, particularly front-line correctional officers and those who work in health care. More than 106,000 prison employees in 29 systems, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to data compiled by The Marshall Project and The Associated Press since December. And some states are not tracking employees who get vaccinated in a community setting such as a clinic or pharmacy.
Still, some correctional officers are refusing the vaccine because they fear both short- and long-term side effects of the immunizations. Others have embraced conspiracy theories about the vaccine. Distrust of the prison administration and its handling of the virus has also discouraged officers from being immunized. In some instances, correctional officers said they would rather be fired than be vaccinated.
The resistance to the vaccine is not unique to correctional officers. Health care workers, caretakers in nursing homes and police officers — who have witnessed the worst effects of the pandemic — have declined to be vaccinated at unexpectedly high rates.
The refusal of prison workers to take the vaccine threatens to undermine efforts to control the pandemic both inside and outside of prisons, according to public health experts. Prisons are coronavirus hot spots, so when staff move between the prisons and their home communities after work, they create a pathway for the virus to spread. More than 388,000 incarcerated people and 105,000 staff members have contracted the coronavirus over the last year. In states like Michigan, Kansas and Arizona, that’s meant 1 in 3 staff members have been infected. In Maine, the state with the lowest infection rate, 1 in 20 staff members tested positive for COVID-19. Nationwide, those infections proved fatal for 2,474 prisoners and at least 193 staff members.
“People who work in prisons are an essential part of the equation that will lead to reduced disease and less chance of renewed explosive COVID-19 outbreaks in the future,” said Brie Williams, a correctional health expert at the University of California, San Francisco, or UCSF.
At FCI Miami, a federal prison in Florida, fewer than half the facility’s 240 employees had been fully vaccinated as of March 11, according to Kareen Troitino, the local corrections officer union president. Many of the workers who refused had expressed concerns about the vaccine’s efficacy and side effects, Troitino said.

The COVID-19 pandemic took the world by surprise, revealing a global failure to invest in pandemic preparedness and thus teaching the global health community a lot of health security lessons.
While Nigeria, like most African countries, has not suffered from the worst effect of the pandemic, unlike its European and American counterparts, the Nigerian government has made some blunders and faced some challenges in managing the virus.
PREMIUM TIMES highlighted five of those challenges in an earlier published report.
This has prompted calls for national leaders and actors to urgently consider strategies to rebuild resilience to such crises, especially by raising the bar for health security financing and accountability mechanisms for coordinated, well-planned responses.
Nigeria is particularly a hotbed of infectious diseases. The country’s tropical climate, population density, socioeconomic realities and high cross-border movement provide a conducive environment for such diseases to thrive.
In view of these ever-present threats, the Legislative Initiative for Sustainable Development (LISDEL) recently hosted a one-day multi-sectoral forum on Epidemic Preparedness and Response (EPR) Financing.
With the theme: ‘Raising the accountability bar for health security financing in Nigeria,’ the workshop was part of LISDEL’s Prevent Epidemics (PE) project; funded by Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) with the aim of boosting domestic spending on EPR.
Held in Abuja, the highlights of the event include two panel sessions: raising the accountability bar for public, private sector and donor investment in EPR; and improving Investment in EPR.
According to the organisers, some key objectives of the programme are to deepen the knowledge of key stakeholders on National Action Plan on Health Security (NAPHS) in Nigeria; and to engender an enabling environment for health security policy and financing in Nigeria through effective stakeholder engagement.


This disaster made us realize that if we do not pay attention to medical care, we will be unprepared before the arrival of the virus.

Nigerian workers led by the leaderships of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), are currently protesting against the Bill seeking movement of the minimum wage from the Executive List to the Concurrent List.
As early as 7:20 am,  workers were already trooping in their numbers armed with placards to the Unity Fountain, to show their displeasure and totally resist the proposed move.
Some inscriptions on the placards read: “On minimum wage we stand’, ‘No to minimum wage on concurrent list’, ‘Yes to minimum wage on Executive list’.
Addressing the workers, President of the NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said the protest was not against the entirety of the National Assembly, but against the Bill, the supporters and sponsors of the Bill including nine state governors as alleged by the unionists.
Wabba, who noted that politicians and not workers, were the problem of the country, said in no distant time, workers would have to pray down fire to consume politicians in Nigeria.
According to him, taking the minimum wage from the Executive List to the Concurrent List was reverting Nigeria 40 years backwards and relegating Nigerian workers to collection of slave wages as some state governors would begin to pay workers wages below N10,000.

The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele says that a vibrant and innovative healthcare system is vital for the country's national security, hence the need to encourage research and innovation in the treatment of health conditions for the Nigerian citizens.
He stated this at the Bank's headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, March 9, 2021, during the presentation of grants to successful beneficiaries of the Health Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme.
Mr. Emefiele disclosed that 68 proposals out of the 286 submissions received by the Body of Experts, had been reviewed and evaluated with five proposals with significant merits valued at N253.54 million recommended by the experts for financing. He added that the recommended proposals also have the potential to enable the development of the Nigerian vaccine for COVID-19.
The Governor said the grant award was a testimony to the significant role research and development in healthcare could play in supporting economic growth, particularly as growth was highly dependent on a strong and healthy workforce.
Mr. Emefiele also noted that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which had an unprecedented effect on world economy, underscored the fact that a healthy and safe workforce remained critical for a continued economic growth as well as the stability of the financial system.
He equally emphasized that the need to move from a consumer-based economy to a more productive economy necessitated the CBN's development of intervention programmes and schemes across various sectors including the health sector.
Continuing, the CBN Governor said that the Bank introduced the Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme (HSRDIS), as part of measures to support the growth of the Nigerian healthcare sector.
According to him, the facility aimed at strengthening the sector's capacity to meet the increasing demand for healthcare products and services, particularly pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare value chain players intending to build or expand capacity.
The CBN Governor also disclosed that 82 projects, valued at N85.89-billion, comprising 26 pharmaceutical and 56 medical projects across the country had been financed through the HSRDIS.
While congratulating the recipients of the grant award, Emefiele urged them to judiciously utilize the opportunity offered to them by the CBN and strive to achieve the purpose of their research by ensuring that their projects meet the set targets. He expressed optimism that the CBN HSRDIS grant will offer an average Nigerian access to the much-needed vaccines and drugs for not just COVID-19, but other communicable or non-communicable diseases.
In his remarks at the occasion, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Mr. Boss Mustapha commended the CBN for what he described as the modest efforts of the Bank at helping future generations to combat any outbreak of health pandemic.
He assured of President Muhammadu Buhari's support to HSRDIS as the President had supported similar responses to curb the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Mustapha said the coronavirus pandemic had exposed the fragilities of different sectors of the economy and governance but called for a collective resolve to overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic.
The SGF who disclosed that the COVID-19 vaccines were safe and efficacious, and therefore urged members of the public to avail themselves the opportunity when the time arose to be vaccinated.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Sen. Adeleke Olorunnimbe Mamora and Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Christiana Adeyeye, both commended the CBN for the initiative and reiterated that the HSRDIS was a step in the right direction in ensuring the vibrant and functional healthcare system as well as the socio-economic well-being of Nigerians.
Recipients of the CBN HSRDIS grant award were Prof. Olufemi Emmanuel Dokun-Babalola, Prof. Okoli Ikechukwu, Dr. John Ogedengbe, Dr. Garba Uba and Dr. O'tega Ejofodomi.
Responding on behalf of the five grant award recipients, Dr. Ejofodomi appreciated the CBN for the opportunity and pledged to utilize the resources for the purpose of the grant.
The CBN Healthcare Sector Research and Development Interventions Scheme (HSRDIS) was introduced with the release of the implementation guidelines and subsequent inauguration of the Scheme's Body of Experts in July 2020. The Scheme is part of the CBN's policy response to the coronavirus pandemic aimed at prompting intense research and developing vaccines and drugs against the spread of other communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Highlights of the event was the presentation of the symbolic cheques of the award of grants to the successful recipients.

Emirates airline has extended suspension of flights to Nigerian cities of Lagos and Abuja till March 20, 2021.
On February 14, Emirates had announced suspension of flights to South Africa and from Nigeria (Lagos and Abuja) to Dubai until March 10, 2021.
“In line with government directives, passenger services from Nigeria (Lagos and Abuja) to Dubai are temporarily suspended until March 20, 2021. Customers from both Abuja and Lagos will not be accepted for travel prior to or including this date.
"Passengers who have been to or connected through Nigeria in the last 14 days are not allowed entry into the UAE (whether terminating in or connecting through Dubai),” the Dubai-based carrier said in a statement on its website.
Emirates flights from Dubai to Lagos and Abuja will continue to operate as per the normal schedule, it said.
“We regret the inconvenience caused, and affected customers should contact their booking agent or Emirates call centre for rebooking. Emirates remains committed to Nigeria, and we look forward to resuming passenger services to Dubai for our customers when conditions allow,” said the statement.

Pryor Cashman Managing Partner Ronald Shechtman discusses the logistical challenges and shifts in priorities that have been necessary to weather the pandemic. As we approach the first-year marker for large-scale work from home procedures, law firms are reevaluating their administrative staffing models and considering replacing the traditional 1:1 model with a more flexible "pool model." According to Law360 Pulse:
The pandemic [...] may have been the tipping point for several firms.
Whether this model will catch on in Mid-Law, however, remains to be seen. [...]
Some Mid-Law firms are considering the idea. Managing partner Ronald H. Shechtman of Pryor Cashman LLP, which has over 150 attorneys based at offices in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, told Law360 that the firm is taking an open-minded approach right now.
"We're looking at every area, top to bottom, as to how we can best meet the new normal," Shechtman said.
That includes considering the merits of a pooled model for staff services as opposed to the dedicated assistants it currently has, he said.
The model would potentially provide more consistent coverage, with a staff member theoretically always available to take a request, he said. But it would also mean that staff members would be less familiar with an attorney's practice, which could mean attorneys would need to supervise more closely.
However, Shechtman added, overall he thinks that now is a good time for firms to make changes and that there is currently more openness among both the partners and the rank and file within the firm to new ideas.
"I think the change in work ... has been so radical and extreme that when we return, there will be more openness than has existed in the past to different models and to experiment with different modalities," he said.
Unlike some BigLaw firms, [...] Shechtman also said that [his firm is not] planning to reduce staffing levels. In fact, after the increase in productivity while attorneys have been working remotely, Shechtman said that Pryor Cashman is open to the idea of increasing the number of staff positions.
Access the full article in the link below.

Two Nigerian nurses were attacked by the family of a deceased COVID-19 patient. One nurse had her hair ripped out and suffered a fracture. The second was beaten into a coma.
Following the assaults, nurses at Federal Medical Centre in the Southwestern city of Owo stopped treating patients, demanding the hospital improve security. Almost two weeks passed before they returned to work with armed guards posted around the clock.
“We don’t give life. It is God that gives life. We only care or we manage,” said Francis Ajibola, a local leader with the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives.
The attack in Nigeria early last month was just one of many on health workers globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new report by the Geneva-based Insecurity Insight and the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center identified more than 1,100 threats or acts of violence against health care workers and facilities last year.
Researchers found that about 400 of those attacks were related to COVID-19, many motivated by fear or frustration, underscoring the dangers surrounding health care workers at a time when they are needed most. Insecurity Insight defines a health care attack as any physical violence against or intimidation of health care workers or settings, and uses online news agencies, humanitarian groups and social media posts to track incidents around the world.
“Our jobs in the emergency department and in hospitals have gotten exponentially more stressful and harder, and that’s at baseline even when people are super supportive,” said Rohini Haar, an emergency physician in Oakland, California, and Human Rights Center research fellow. “To do that work and to do it with commitment while being attacked or with the fear of being attacked is heartbreaking to me.”
Medical professionals from surgeons to paramedics have long confronted injury or intimidation on the job, especially in conflict zones. Experts say many attacks are rooted in fear or mistrust, as family members react to a relative’s death or a community responds to uncertainty around a disease. The coronavirus has amplified those tensions.
Ligia Kantún has worked as a nurse for 40 years in Mexico and never felt threatened until last spring. As she was leaving a hospital in Merida in April, she heard someone shout the word “Infected!” She was drenched in hot coffee before she could turn around.
“When I got home 10 minutes later my daughter was waiting for me and I hugged her crying, all scared, thinking, ‘How is it possible that they have done this to me?’” she told The Associated Press.
Kantún said many people in Mexico at the time thought health workers wore the same uniforms in public that they wore when treating coronavirus patients. “That ignorance was what made them act that way,” she said.
Researchers saw the most attacks last spring and summer as the coronavirus swept across the globe. Yet recent events from Nigeria to the Netherlands, where in January rioters set fire to a coronavirus testing center, prove the threat remains.
Haar said she expected health care workers to be widely celebrated for their lifesaving work during the pandemic, just as Italians sang tributes to doctors during the lockdown.
“But actually that didn’t happen in many, many places,” she said. “There’s actually more fear, more distrust, and attacks grew rather than decreased.”
Many attacks may have gone undetected because they are never reported to police or in the media. Insecurity Insight scrambled to expand its monitoring as a flood of attacks were detected in countries that have traditionally been safe for health workers, said director Christina Wille.
In the United States, for example, researchers counted about a dozen threats to health care workers last year. Several incidents involved the injury or arrest of street medics during Black Lives Matter protests.
“I think in the U.S. the culture has been more of trusting health workers,” Haar, the emergency physician, said. “There hasn’t been a longstanding conflict where there’s been a dissonance between health workers and the community.”
Yet health workers in the U.S. are still subject to great risk. Hospital employees in the U.S. are nearly six times as likely as the average worker to be the victim of an intentional injury, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and last month a Minnesota medical assistant was killed during a shooting at a clinic by a former patient unhappy with his treatment.
Misinformation has spurred violence in some cases. Wille said her team looked closely at social media postings in April after three Ebola treatment centers were ransacked in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“We could actually see that there was a build-up over several days of misinformation about what they call the ‘Ebola business,’ that this was all related to people inventing the disease,” she said.
Experts say that even though health workers are in many cases the target of attacks, entire communities suffer when they lose access to medical care after a clinic or medical facility is forced to close due to threats.
“You’re robbing the community of the service they would have provided,” said Nyka Alexander, who leads the World Health Organization’s communications on health emergencies.
With or without a pandemic, the most dangerous places for health workers are often areas of conflict and political upheaval. Last year, hundreds of threats and acts of violence were tracked in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Naser Almhawish, surveillance coordinator for Syria’s Early Warning Alert and Response Network, said he faced threats several times while working as a doctor in the city of Raqqa. He recalled the day in 2012 at Ar-Raqqa National Hospital when armed men confronted him in the middle of an operation, saying they’d kill him if the patient died.
“You just freeze and you know that you are working and you are trying to save this guy,” he said. “This is our duty. I didn’t ask if this guy was a military, civilian or anything. He’s a human being who needed an operation.”
Almhawish said such attacks on health care settings in Syria had waned in the last year. Researchers said declining violence in the country was the reason they didn’t see a greater surge in total health care attacks in 2020.
Kantún, the nurse in Mexico, said she went almost eight months after the attack last April without wearing her nursing scrubs in public. Now, one year into the pandemic, she feels health workers are more respected. But she still worries.
“I’ve had that fear of going out and finding my car scratched, or my car window broken,” she said. “I do have that fear, since I lived it.”


Even in many cases, health workers are the targets of attacks, but after clinics or medical institutions are forced to close due to threats, the entire community still suffers without access to medical services. To protect health workers is to protect ourselves.

The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday, adding a third vaccine to the U.S. arsenal to fight the pandemic.

“Today’s emergency use authorization of the Janssen Covid-19 vaccine is another milestone as we work to end the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “Guided by our careful review of the science and data, we have determined that the vaccine’s known potential benefits clearly outweigh its known potential risks.”

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

The decision comes one day after an advisory committee to the FDA voted unanimously in favor of recommending the vaccine.

"We're in a race between the virus mutating, with new variants coming out that can cause further disease, and stopping it," said Dr. Jay Portnoy, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and a member of the advisory committee.

"The fewer people who are infected with the virus, the less opportunity it has to emerge as a more virulent strain."

President Joe Biden released a statement after the announcement, calling the decision "exciting news for all Americans, and an encouraging development in our efforts to bring an end to the crisis."

Doses are expected to begin shipping Monday, starting with about 4 million of them. Johnson & Johnson, which developed the vaccine in partnership with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, said that 20 million doses will be available by the end of March.

That will be enough to fully vaccinate 20 million people, because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is given as a single dose. The other available vaccines, from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are given as two doses each, three to four weeks apart.

Though the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be given as a single dose, the company is studying the impact of a second dose.

On Friday, members of the FDA's panel of independent experts wondered what would happen if a two-dose formulation is ultimately authorized.

Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, suggested it might be difficult to communicate the change to those who only received the one dose.

"You can see where that would be confusing to people where they may be thinking, 'Maybe I didn’t get what I need?'"

An FDA analysis, posted online Wednesday, found the vaccine to be safe and effective. The single shot was shown to be 86 percent effective at preventing severe disease. In the U.S., the shot was found to be 72 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe disease. In South Africa, where a worrisome variant is circulating, that number was lower: 64 percent.

"People should take the vaccine they are able to access," said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock. "All these vaccines meet our standards for effectiveness."

Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, applauded the FDA's decision.

"With three Covid-19 vaccines now available, the number of cases and deaths around the country continuing to fall, and Congress taking steps toward approving additional critically needed economic relief, I have never been more encouraged that we might be finally turning the corner on this pandemic," he said in a statement.

Still, Besser said that Americans must remain vigilant, adhering to mask-wearing, distancing and limiting travel. "Whether and when the pandemic ends is — as it has always been — largely up to us.”

In December, the FDA authorized Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Two more vaccines, from AstraZeneca and Novavax, are completing Phase 3 clinical trials, and are expected to apply for FDA authorization in the spring.

On a hot day in December 2020, I was sitting in a filled-up keke — commercial tricycle — totally detesting what lay ahead of me. It was Thursday, the 17th, a day after the Federal Government ordered Nigerians to link their National Identification Number (NIN)s to their SIMs or get blocked.
Though it did not make sense that I was heading for Ikotun — one of many busy and crowded locations in Lagos, Nigeria — after the country was hit by the second wave of COVID-19, there I was, without a choice. Overcome by regret for not seizing the opportunity to register in 2015, I questioned the logic behind the directive as the keke weaved its way through traffic.
Given the urgency of the situation, I was not surprised to see a lot of people at the Local Council Office. Making my way up the stairs of the unremarkable National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) building where the NIN registration was taking place, I harboured fears of a crowd and a long queue.
My fears gave way to reality when I got to the office; there was a long queue with people who clung to each other as if to close spaces that less patient people would exploit as they pushed through.
Interestingly, the crowd was at a decent distance (one metre is my best guess) from the NIMC office door. Very few people were wearing masks. A surprisingly friendly staff stood at the entrance addressing questions from random people. Ironically, a sign on the door boldly read, “NO MASK – NO ENTRY.”
Calmly, the staff explained that the following week’s list was filled on Friday the week before.
“What? When next should I come then?”
“Tomorrow,” he said, staring right into my saucer-wide eyes.
“And make sure you come as early as 8 a.m,” he concluded.
Their goal — crowd management at the centre — was an exercise in futility.
I got there just before eight the following morning, and this time, an unfriendly staff firmly told me to come back in January 2021.
As I slowly made my way back home, there were questions on my mind: How did we get here? Why is the government doing this? What will be the consequence of such a move?

WASHINGTON — The severe winter storms that have devastated Texas and surrounding states have delayed the distribution of 6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses, but Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that it's only a "temporary setback" that will be fixed by the middle of the week.
"Obviously, it is a setback, because you'd like to see the steady flow of vaccine getting out there to get into people's arms. But we can play pretty good catch-up," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press."
"The number was 6 million doses got delayed. We've gotten 2 million out, and we project that by the middle of the week we will have caught up."
The brutal weather left millions of people without power as temperatures plummeted. And even as power is returning, broken pipes mean many still lack clean water. President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in 77 counties across Texas, making them eligible for federal recovery funds, and some emergency management officials want to include the entire state in the disaster declaration.
The rough weather prompted what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called "widespread delays in Covid-19 vaccine shipments and deliveries." Power failures also forced some health care officials to quickly administer vaccine doses before they spoiled.
More than 57 million doses of the vaccines have been administered — with 41 million first doses administered and 16 million people fully vaccinated with the two-dose regimen — according to an NBC News analysis.
The average daily number of Covid-19 cases continues to plummet from a post-holiday peak. The U.S. has reported more than 100,000 new daily cases on only one of the last 14 days, a month after it regularly hit more than 200,000 new cases, according to NBC News data. Daily deaths are decreasing, too, but more slowly, still regularly eclipsing 2,000.

A laboratory study suggests that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccine by two-thirds, and it is not clear if the shot will be effective against the mutation, the companies said on Wednesday.
The study found the vaccine was still able to neutralize the virus and there is not yet evidence from trials in people that the variant reduces vaccine protection, the companies said.
Still, they are making investments and talking to regulators about developing an updated version of their mRNA vaccine or a booster shot, if needed.
For the study, scientists from the companies and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) developed an engineered virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa, known as B.1.351. The spike, used by the virus to enter human cells, is the primary target of many COVID-19 vaccines.
Researchers tested the engineered virus against blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine, and found a two- thirds reduction in the level of neutralizing antibodies compared with its effect on the most common version of the virus prevalent in U.S. trials.
Their findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world.
However, UTMB professor and study co-author Pei-Yong Shi said he believes the Pfizer vaccine will likely be protective against the variant.
"We don't know what the minimum neutralizing number is. We don't have that cutoff line," he said, adding that he suspects the immune response observed is likely to be significantly above where it needs to be to provide protection.
That is because in clinical trials, both the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and a similar shot from Moderna Inc conferred some protection after a single dose with an antibody response lower than the reduced levels caused by the South African variant in the laboratory study.
Even if the concerning variant significantly reduces effectiveness, the vaccine should still help protect against severe disease and death, he noted. Health experts have said that is the most important factor in keeping stretched healthcare systems from becoming overwhelmed.
More work is needed to understand whether the vaccine works against the South African variant, Shi said, including clinical trials and the development of correlates of protection - the benchmarks to determine what antibody levels are protective.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they were doing similar lab work to understand whether their vaccine is effective against another variant first found in Brazil.
Moderna published a correspondence in NEJM on Wednesday with similar data previously disclosed elsewhere that showed a sixfold drop antibody levels versus the South African variant.
Moderna also said the actual efficacy of its vaccine against the South African variant is yet to be determined. The company has previously said it believes the vaccine will work against the variant.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California on Tuesday was poised to surpass New York as the U.S. state with the most coronavirus deaths, a grim reminder of the pandemic’s toll even as the vaccine rollout and a sharp drop in new cases offer hope that life will eventually return to normal.
Fatalities from COVID-19 reached 44,495 late Monday in California, the most populous U.S. state, according to a Reuters tally that will be updated later on Tuesday. In New York, which was especially hard hit in the pandemic's early days, the death toll stood at 44,693. here
“This is a heart-wrenching reminder that COVID-19 is a deadly virus, and we mourn alongside every Californian who has suffered the tragic loss of a loved one during this pandemic,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, head of the state’s Health & Human Services Agency, said of the milestone in an email to Reuters.
Part of the reason for California’s high death toll is the state’s huge population: 40 million people. When considered in terms of per capita deaths, California, with 113 deaths per 100,000 residents, ranks 32nd in the nation. By comparison, New York, with 248 deaths per 100,000, ranks second after New Jersey, which has had about 230 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents.
Nationwide, new cases and hospitalizations from COVID-19 have been dropping rapidly while deaths, a lagging indicator, have plateaued.
The United States had reported 27.17 million cases and 465,440 deaths by midnight Monday. There were 79,805 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals by midnight Monday, the lowest hospitalization number since Nov. 19 when there were 80,318 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
But in California as well as other states the improvement masks a continuing march of illness and deaths, which remain higher now than they were at the pandemic’s previous peak last summer.
The number of new deaths reported daily in the state has declined over the past several weeks, but remains “remarkably” high at an average of 500 fatalities per day over the past 14 days, Governor Gavin Newsom said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“Deaths continue to be devastating and our heart goes out to every family member that’s lost a loved one, that’s been torn asunder because of this pandemic,” the California governor said, speaking at the opening of a new vaccination site at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara County near San Francisco.
Public health experts fear that a surge propelled by Super Bowl parties on Sunday, as well as the arrival of new, highly contagious variants of the virus may lead to another jump in cases before most Americans are vaccinated.
In an effort to speed the rollout of vaccines that are being counted on to stop the pandemic’s spread, President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that his administration planned to increase the number of vaccine doses sent to the states, beginning on Feb. 15.
Part of the expanded supply will be sent to community health centers in an effort to improve vaccine access for the mostly poor and minority population that the centers serve, the White House said on Tuesday.
By Tuesday, about 33 million Americans had received at least one dose of vaccine to fight the coronavirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.
“This vaccine is the weapon that will win this war!” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a news briefing on Tuesday. Ten percent of New York state residents have received the vaccine, he said.

The purchase of one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines has split leaders of Nigeria’s private sector with allegations of falsehood and insincerity being branded by top players.
Top industrial firm, BUA Group, has accused the private sector-led Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), which it is part of, of mischief and spreading false information.
BUA was reacting to a statement by CACOVID, disowning its (BUA) payment through CACOVID for one million AstraZeneca doses of COVID-19 vaccines for Nigeria via the AFREXIM bank.
BUA said it was utterly shocked by the statement from the coalition describing it as “petty.”
Earlier on Monday morning, BUA had announced that through the AFREXIM vaccine programme in partnership with CACOVID, that it secured one million vaccine doses which are expected to be delivered next week to become the first delivery of vaccines to Nigeria since the COVID-19 vaccines were certified for global use.
“BUA decided to secure these 1million vaccines by paying the full amount for the vaccines today (Monday) because these vaccines became available only last week through AFREXIM. We expect the vaccines to be delivered within the next 14 days and hope priority will be given to our frontline workers who have committed their lives to managing the pandemic,” a statement signed by BUA founder, Abdul Samad Rabiu, said.
He said the purchase was coordinated by the President of the Afrexim Bank, Benedict Oramah, and the Nigerian Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, through the CACOVID Private Sector partnership.
But shortly after the announcement, CACOVID issued a rebuttal, disowning BUA’s purported purchase of one million COVID-19 vaccines singlehandedly for Nigeria, saying that no individual company has the capacity to strike such a deal.
CACOVID is tasked with pulling private resources together to assist Nigerians and the government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Alhaji Abdulsamad must have been misquoted because these claims are not factual as CACOVID operates on a collegiate fund contribution model. There is no agreement between BUA, CACOVID, and Afreximbank”, CACOVID said in an official statement, PM News reported.
“During the CACOVID weekly call of February 8th, Governor Emefiele, relayed to the larger group a call that he held with Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Herbert Wigwe with Afreximbank President, Benedict Oramah on Sunday, Feb 7th. President Oramah briefed the 3 CACOVID leaders on the $2 billion facility the Bank has set up with the African Union Vaccine taskforce to purchase vaccines for the African Continent.
“The allocation for Nigeria has been capped at 42 million doses. President Oramah explained that 1 million doses were ready for shipment to Nigeria in the next 2 weeks if a down payment was made by today, February 8th,” the statement said.

THE World Health Organisation, WHO, has confirmed that Nigeria will receive 16 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccines out of the 88 million doses allocated to Africa by COVAX, even as it explained the rationale behind the exemption of Nigeria from the initial COVAX’s Pfizer vaccines allocation to African non-self-financing countries.The World Health Agency also dismissed media reports that it has disqualified Nigeria from accessing COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX facility.The WHO Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulomboo, who spoke at a joint press conference with the Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, said WHO was supporting all countries to access vaccines as quickly as possible. Reacting to the purported disqualification of Nigeria from accessing COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX, the WHO Representative stated: “WHO has not disqualified any country in Africa from accessing COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX facility, but rather is supporting all countries to access vaccines as quickly as possible. “Of the 88 million AstraZeneca doses allocated to African countries for the first phase, Nigeria has received by far the largest allocation, with 16 million doses. “Currently, all countries on the continent are expected to start accessing the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines by the end of February. The vaccine is under review by WHO for Emergency Use Listing and the outcome is expected soon.” According to him, the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is still under review for Emergency Use Listing and the outcome is expected soon probably within a few days. Throwing light into why Nigeria was exempted from the Pfizer vaccines through COVAX, he said it was largely due to supply. According to Kazadi Mulomboo, there was an initial limited volume of Pfizer vaccine available through COVAX and the demand for the initial allocation of 1.2 million Pfizer doses was exceptionally high. “COVAX received interest from 72 countries around the world, of which 51 countries were considered by the review committee as ‘ready’. Nigeria was among these countries and 18 countries in total were finally chosen to receive initial Pfizer doses. “On the Africa continent, as of the 18 January deadline, COVAX received 13 submissions and a multi-agency committee evaluated the proposals of which nine were recommended as ready to deploy the Pfizer vaccine including Nigeria. “Unfortunately, it was not feasible to provide each of these 51 countries with Pfizer doses, due to a number of factors including the limited capacity for Pfizer to handle many countries at once. Therefore, spreading the limited doses across all the 51 countries deemed ‘ready’ could have not achieve the intended public health benefit. “After epidemiological data was taken into account, the decision was taken to proportionally balance the number of self financing and AMC Participants, as well as Participants across all six WHO regions. “The COVAX vaccines were never to cover only one country or Nigeria alone. We will continue to get evidence for more candidate vaccines and there will be more available for countries to access. Speaking, the Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib said: “As clearly stated by the WHO Regional Director, there are a number of factors that were considered in allocating the small quantity of the 320,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine to Covax countries. “These include the mortality rates from COVID-19, the number of new cases, the trend in the number of cases, the population of countries and the availability of the appropriate Cold Chain equipment. “It is clear that countries such as South Africa which received the Pfizer allocation have the new strain of the COVID-19 virus, has the highest mortality rates and is struggling to contain transmission. “Furthermore, giving smaller countries such as Cape Verde and Rwanda few doses of the Pfizer vaccine would have a larger public health impact considering their population size. 100,000 doses to Nigeria, we have all agreed would have been a drop in the ocean. “So, it is a welcome development that we are receiving 16m doses of the Astrazeneca vaccine to replace the Pfizer vaccine in the same month of February. The 16m doses will invariably help us reach more of our population and is suited to our existing cold chain system.”

The recent news about vaccines is also too worrying. Hope to get more accurate information.

Children who get a seasonal flu shot could be less likely to suffer symptoms from a Covid-19 infection, according to recent research.
The study suggests that other vaccines may also prove beneficial in reducing symptoms and complications linked to SARS-CoV-2.
Although Covid-19 vaccination programmes are now underway in many countries, children are not considered a priority group for inoculation.
However, new research from the University of Missouri School of Medicine could encourage parents to get their kids a flu shot in the meantime.
In fact, the study suggests that children who get a flu vaccine are less likely to suffer symptoms from a Covid-19 infection.
To come to this conclusion, scientists examined the medical records of 905 paediatric patients diagnosed with Covid-19 between February and August 2020 to establish each patient’s influenza vaccination history.
The researchers observed that children with a positive Covid-19 diagnosis who received the influenza shot in the current flu season had lower odds of experiencing symptoms, respiratory problems or severe disease.
“It is known that the growth of one virus can be inhibited by a previous viral infection,” said Anjali Patwardhan, MD, professor of paediatric rheumatology and child health.
“This phenomenon is called virus interference, and it can occur even when the first virus invader is an inactivated virus, such as the case with the flu vaccine.”
In addition, the researchers found that Covid-19-positive children who received the pneumococcal vaccine also had lower odds of experiencing symptomatic disease
“Research on the paediatric population is critical because children play a significant role in influencing viral transmission,” the study’s lead author continues.
“Understanding the relationship and co-existence of other viruses alongside Covid-19 and knowing the vaccination status of the paediatric patient may help in deploying the right strategies to get the best outcomes.”
The researchers now hope to explore the link between vaccination and covid-19 symptoms in a larger geographical-multiracial study.

The deadliest month yet of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. drew to a close with certain signs of progress: COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are plummeting, while vaccinations are picking up speed.
The question is whether the nation can stay ahead of the fast-spreading mutations of the virus.
The U.S. death toll has climbed past 440,000, with over 95,000 lives lost in January alone. Deaths are running at about 3,150 per day on average, down slightly by about 200 from their peak in mid-January.
But as the calendar turned to February on Monday, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 fell below 100,000 for the first time in two months. New cases of infection are averaging about 148,000 day, falling from almost a quarter-million in mid-January. And cases are trending downward in all 50 states.
“While the recent decline in cases and hospital admissions are encouraging, they are counterbalanced by the stark reality that in January we recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in any month since the pandemic began," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Deaths do not move in perfect lockstep up or down with the infection curve. They are a lagging indicator, because it can take a few weeks for people to get sick and die from COVID-19.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, an epidemiologist at Boston College, said vaccines are a factor in the sharp drop in cases but are not the primary cause. Instead, he said, the crisis has become increasingly “depoliticized” in recent weeks as more people come to grips with the threat and how they can help slow the spread of the virus.
“I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of this culture change. I think it’s critically important,” he said.
After a slow start, the vaccination drive that began in mid-December is picking up the pace. More than 32.2 million doses have been administered in the U.S., according to the CDC. That is up from 16.5 million on the day President Joe Biden took office, Jan. 20.
The number of shots dispensed in the week and a half since Biden's inauguration has been running at around 1.3 million per day on average, well over the president's oft-stated goal of 1 million per day. More than 5.9 million Americans have received the required two doses, the CDC said.

In Abuja, Nigeria, a super market "The real Farms" offers organically grown products that it delivers directly from the farm to the consumer.
For its CEO, Daniel Odi, the company's goal is to deliver real value and healthy organic food to its customers.
A recent report indicates that the coronavirus has led to an increase in demand for organic and sustainable food.
"For people who are health conscious and don't know what to do because what we eat determines our health. What goes into our system is 90% of our health," reveals the CEO of "The real Farms. I can't say business has been profitable yet but you know business has an incubation period, what we had as plan is to achieve healthy life for nigerians and while doing so we should be able to earn little money to take care of this place and also take care of our investment " , Daniel Odi.
The supervisor says that sometimes they get about 150 orders a day.
Fruit and vegetable smoothies or hot salty snacks, all products are made from fresh, locally produced products
The Covid-19 pandemic as well as the ENDSARS demonstrations have affected them greatly.
According to Odi, there are plans to open more outlets in Abuja, then Kano, Kaduna and Jos, with Ghana and Togo to follow in the coming years.

President Biden is expected to announce a moratorium on future oil and gas drilling permits today, Wednesday January 27, fulfilling in part his campaign pledge to end drilling on federal lands and the continental shelf. The move, which has long been anticipated by the O&G industry, comes on the heels of a January 20th order signed by Acting Secretary of the Interior Scott de la Vega mandating a 60-day restriction for new onshore and offshore fossil fuel leases. Should the Senate confirm Deb Haaland as the Secretary of Interior, the order might be extended further or even made permanent, though Republicans will doubtless try to ally with pro-business Democrats in opposing such a move.
Almost a quarter of US oil production and 12 percent of natural gas production takes place on federal land and water. According to the Interior Department’s Office of Natural Resource Revenue federal drilling programs generated $11.7 billion in tax revenue. If the moratorium extends to all active leases on federal lands, this will be gone, despite the mushrooming 2020 federal debt of $27 trillion and budget deficit of over $3 trillion – a whopping 16 percent of the GDP.
In the short term, the tangible impact of the order may be negligible. The president did not conceal his intentions to pursue such a strategy, and companies aggressively pursued drilling permits in the months surrounding the election even as they were forced to otherwise downsize amidst pandemic-reduced demand. As the mandate does not inhibit previously acquired permits, those who thought ahead could endure the moratorium in hopes of it being ended by a future administration (President Obama’s coal leasing moratorium was ended by President Trump).
Still, the ban will deliver a massive blow to the U.S. hydrocarbon industry. If the Secretary of Interior makes the order permanent, and if the Republican minority fails to find the votes in Congress, then the order may be lifted only by the next Administration. However, there is no guarantee Biden’s successor will be a Republican. The energy industry might be prepared to weather two months or even tighten its collective belt for four years of the moratorium, but what if the ban lasts eight years? The private sector abhors uncertainty.
Environmentalists will be thrilled at the victory, but some are concerned by the change. “Energy demand will continue to rise,” said American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers in a January 21st statement. An end to drilling on federal lands will not change America’s need for energy, but will lead to importing from “countries with lower environmental standards” all while deny state and local governments much need revenue.
For the last 11 years, the long term increases in domestic production fueled by hydraulic fracturing has carried the United States toward net exporter status and energy independence. America is now the world’s largest hydrocarbon producer. This trend has seen US imports from the OPEC oil cartel plummet from over six million barrels per day to slightly under 700 thousand. Increased  economic independence from foreign powers, particularly from democracy-averse cartel members, is unquestionably a foreign policy win for the United States. With independence comes the liberty to take moral stances otherwise viewed as bad for business, something Democrats should remember if they intend to confront Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
If the United States cedes its hard-fought oil market share, it is certain others will seek to fill the gap. Already Russia and Saudi Arabia have scrapped for dominance, and Iran and Qatar remain joint owners of the world’s largest natural gas field.. The yielded revenue would go to America’s geopolitical rivals, where democratic norms are trampled, environmental standards are limited and enforcement is lax.

Kano — The Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has clarified that his administration had no intention to impose another lockdown in the wake of the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic disease.
Ganduje stated that the second wave of the pandemic would not warrant another lockdown and called on the people to brace up to the challenge of observing and adhering to the COVID-19 protocols for their own safety.
He made the clarification yesterday while addressing a congregation of markets' leaders that cut across different strata during a special meeting that was held at Africa House, Kano Government House.
The governor warned that no one would be safe if the COVID-19 protocols were grossly violated and affirmed that it is the responsibility of the markets' leaders to enlighten and encourage traders to observe the protocols as a way of stemming the spread of the deadly pandemic.
Ganduje, who was represented by the Deputy Governor of Kano State, Dr. Nasir Yusuf Gawuna, however stated that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted severe damage on businesses across the state and badly affected the lives of those who do not have the means to earn a living.
Ganduje said: "We are not unmindful of the severe repercussions caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. People have suffered the pain and the severe trauma of staying at home without transacting their normal businesses. The common man would be the hardest hit, when it comes to the issue of imposing another lockdown and we are praying for such a scenario not to happen.
"People should be mindful of the difficulty they have encountered in the past. Staying at home in the name of lockdown would not auger well for the public. We really want to avoid falling into such a bleak situation, that is why we are insisting on the strict adherence to the protocol," he added.
The governor also stated that COVID-19 vaccine would only be administered on the public after a careful scrutiny by competent medical authorities.