24032021 - Insecurity threatens 2023 elections, Ortom tells Buhari

10 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2021
AstraZeneca may have used outdated
information in trial, US health officials allege
.As Nigeria vaccinates 215,277 eligible persons
By Sola Ogundipe &
Chioma Obinna
RESULTS from a US trial
of AstraZeneca's Covid-
19 vaccine may have
included "outdated
information" and that could
mean the company
provided an incomplete
view of efficacy data,
American federal health
officials have stated.
This development came
as 215,277 eligible
Nigerians were vaccinated
with with the 1st dose of the
vaccine.
AstraZeneca reported
Monday that its Covid-19
vaccine provided strong
protection among adults of
all ages in a longanticipated
US study.
In the study of more than
30,000 people, the company
reported that the vaccine
was found to be 79 percent
effective at preventing
symptomatic cases of
Covid-19 — including in
older adults.
There were no severe
illnesses or hospitalisations
among vaccinated
volunteers, compared with
five such cases in
participants who received
dummy shots — a small
number, but consistent with
findings from Britain and
other countries that the
vaccine protects against the
worst of the disease.
AstraZeneca also said the
study's independent safety
monitors found no serious
side effects, including no
increased risk of rare blood
clots like those identified in
Europe, a scare that led
Nigeria records worst TB burden in Africa
— EL-Lab boosts case detection with 16-module GeneXpert machine
By Chioma Obinna
ONE hundred years
after the launch of the
Tuberculosis (TB) vaccine,
Nigeria ranks worst in
Africa and 6th among 20
countries with the highest
burden of TB in the world.
To this end, the country
yesterday launched the
first 16 Module GeneXpert
machine for the detection
of TB in a private laboratory
in Lagos even as the
Federal government has
been urged to step up
private sector contribution
to improve the poor global
ranking in TB burden.
Speaking during the
official launch at the El -
Lab Medical Laboratory
Diagnostic Ltd, Festac
Lagos as part of the USAID
funded SHOPS Plus
project, the Lagos State
Commissioner for Health,
Prof Akin Abayomi said
Nigeria contributes 8 per
cent of the million missing
numerous countries to
briefly suspend
vaccinations last week.
But just hours after those
encouraging results were
reported, the US National
Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases issued
an unusual statement.
The agency said the Data
and Safety Monitoring
Board "expressed concern
that AstraZeneca may have
included outdated
information from that trial,
which may have provided
an incomplete view of the
efficacy data."
"We urge the company to
work with the DSMB to
review the efficacy data and
ensure the most accurate,
up-to-date efficacy data be
made public as quickly as
possible," the statement
added.
Nigeria vaccinates
215,277 persons
The National Primary
Healthcare Development
Agency, NPHCDA,
Tuesday said it has
vaccinated a total of 215,277
eligible Nigerians with the
first dose of the
AstraZeneca COVID-19
vaccine as of 23rd of March
2021.
In an Electronic
Management of
Immunisation Data
(EMID) System made
available to Vanguard,
Lagos is still topping the list
with a total of 58,461
persons, (11.5%).
However, seven states are
yet to commence COVID-
19 vaccination. These
TB cases in the world while
Lagos contributes 11 per
cent in the country’s TB
burden.
Abayomi, represented by
a Director at the State
Ministry of Health, Dr
Agbo Lagoritie said it is
important to recognize the
contribution of private
sector facilities such as EL-
Lab.
The occasion marked this
year’s World Tuberculosis
Day with the theme: “The
clock is Ticking”, and the
slogan adapted by Nigeria
is “That cough, e fit be TB,
not COVID, check am ooo!”
It was organised in
collaboration with the
National Tuberculosis and
Leprosy Control
Programme, NTBLCP,
Lagos State TB
Programme, and the
USAID SHOPS Plus
project.
The Chief Executive
Director of EL-Lab, Dr
Elochukwu Adibo said
data made available by
states are Abia, Kebbi, Oyo,
Zamfara, Niger, Kogi and
Taraba. Other states that
have made significant
NTBLCP, has shown that
private sector engagement
has increased TB case
detection by 68 per cent in
the first quarter of 2020
compared to 2019.
Further, Adibo said
private sector participation
increased case detection
from 104,904 cases in 2017,
to 106,533 in 2018 and
120,266 in 2019
respectively.
”TB is still a major public
health problem in Nigeria
and a leading cause of
death among infectious
diseases. The adoption of
the GeneXpert MTB/RIF
test as the entry point
diagnostic tool for TB case
detection was done in 2016
and the Federal
Government in its wisdom,
through the FMOH
NTBLCP, engaged private
health sector including
Guild of Medical Directors,
GMLD, of Lab Private
Sector, Association of
General Private Medical
Practitioners, AGPMPN,
progress includes; Bauchi,
23,827, Jigawa, 20,800,
Kaduna, 14572, Kwara
state, 12, 016 among others.
community pharmacists
and Association of General
Private Nurses
Practitioners of Nigeria,
AGPNPN and others to
help increase case detection
and treatment.
Adibo said with the
donation, EL-Lab, applied
private-sector efficiencyoptimised
testing with the
machine and brought
about significant
improvement in TB case
detection and testing with
tremendous support and
partnership from the
USAID SHOPS PLUS
programme network and
their technical and logistic
excellence.
Citing what EL-Lab has
done with other private
labs, he said In Lagos state,
private sector contribution
was less than 3 per cent in
2018 to TB detection but
has now risen to 21 per cent
in 2021, bringing the
Nigerian case detection rate
to 31 per cent up from 24
per cent in 2017
How Buhari administration’s
ESP helped Nigeria tackle
COVID-19 challenges
— OSINBAJO
NIGERIA’S priorities in
a post-COVID-19
world include restoring
economic growth in the
immediate term, building
resilience in the health
sector, and repositioning
the economy on a
sustainable footing in the
medium term while saving
jobs and building domestic
capacity and local
production in critical areas.
The Vice President, Yemi
Osinbajo, who disclosed
this during a virtual
Chatham House interactive
session on Tuesday
highlighted the significant
impact of the Buhari
administration’s Economic
Sustainability Plan (ESP) as
a crucial pivot in helping
the country respond to the
fallouts of the pandemic.
In the chat themed:
“Priorities for Nigeria’s
Post-COVID Recovery”,
Osinbajo discussed the
challenges posed to
Nigeria by the global
COVID-19 pandemic and
the Nigerian government’s
response aimed at ensuring
lasting socio-economic
recovery and development.
In his viewsm he
emphasised that the Buhari
administration’s first
priority was to protect
people and their
livelihoods in response to
the fallout of the pandemic.
One of the ways was to
support the critical
MSMEs sector through the
Survival Fund scheme, a
component under the ESP.”
“One of the specific
interventions under the ESP
was what we describe as the
Survival Fund, which
essentially was a fund to
protect jobs and to ensure
that during the course of the
pandemic and immediately
thereafter, informal workers
in particular or private
sector workers especially
those in the informal sector,
were at least able to
continue to earn some
wages," the Vice President
stated.
He added that through
the Survival Fund scheme,
over 300,000 beneficiaries,
as well as businesses have
been supported during the
pandemic “by providing
salaries for three months for
beneficiaries, which
include private school
teachers, artisans, road
transporters, taxi cab
operators, and commercial
tricycle operators in the
urban areas.
“We also sought to protect
the most vulnerable, in
particular, the urban poor
who were also hard hit. What
we did was to provide direct
cash transfers to the urban
poor, many of them who are
captured in a social register.
“We also have a mass
housing programme which
is designed to deliver
affordable homes through
direct intervention in the
housing construction sector
aimed at creating 1.8
million jobs together with
the construction of 300,000
homes in the first phase. At
the moment, the
programme is ongoing in
12 states which will be
expanded to all of the states
in the federation.”
“Since February 2020
(when Nigeria confirmed its
first COVID-19 case), we
have significantly ramped
up our testing and case
management capacity. We
have activated from about
five molecular laboratories
to about 120, most of them
public laboratories.
“We have expanded the
footprint of our sovereign
public health response
capacity, especially at the
sub-national level, and in
areas where such
capabilities didn’t exist
before.
“Going forward," he said
"we are committed to
building on the exemplary
dedication of our health
workers and strengthening
the capacity of our health
systems to withstand
shocks created by infectious
diseases and pandemics
such as we are
experiencing.
“One reason why we've
been able to manage this
pandemic better than
expected is that we did have
some existing public sector
infrastructure to work with,
the Ebola outbreak in 2014,
our ongoing battles with
Lassa fever, our successes
with polio eradication all
helped us to tighten our
pandemic contingency
plans, strengthen our
emergency coordination
and surveillance capacity
and also enhance
investments in public
health laboratories.”
He highlighted the
government’s efforts
through the Nigeria Centre
for Disease Control,
NCDC, in tackling the
pandemic, adding that it
also prioritized the
strengthening of the
country’s public health
infrastructure.
“While it is true that in
many respects, our hospital
infrastructure still lags
behind in standards,
especially when compared
with richer countries of the
world, we've been able to
draw on the resilience and
adaptability of our tried and
tested community health
system,” he noted.