24032021 - Insecurity threatens 2023 elections, Ortom tells Buhari

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10 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2021 AstraZeneca may have used outdated information in trial, US health officials allege .As Nigeria vaccinates 215,277 eligible persons By Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna RESULTS from a US trial of AstraZeneca's Covid- 19 vaccine may have included "outdated information" and that could mean the company provided an incomplete view of efficacy data, American federal health officials have stated.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.
Vanguard, , WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2021 — 11 :Vanguard :@vanguardnews :@vanguardnewsNEWS HOTLINES: Social Media Conversation VISIT—Country HR Director, Nigerian Bottling Company, NBC, Olumide Sholanke; Director, Public Affairs & Communications, NBC, Ekuma Eze; MD, NBC, Matthieu Seguin; President, Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUCN, and Food, Beverages & Tobacco Senior Staff Association, FOBTOB, Comrade Quadri Olaleye; Deputy National President, FOBTOB, Comrade Jimoh Oyibo, and National Treasurer, FOBTOB, Comrade Adebayo Aderogba, during a courtesy visit by the union team, to the NBC Head Office, in Lagos. INSECURITY: Police mount 24hr surveillance on Lagos schools, farms By Evelyn Usman LAGOS—THE Commissioner of Police, Lagos Command, Mr. Hakeem Odumosu, yesterday, disclosed that policemen have been deployed to carry out 24 hours surveillance on schools and farms, to avert kidnappings and banditry in Lagos State. The Police boss, however, lamented that some of the terrains, especially those of the farms, were not accessible by vehicles. He said the command would liaise with the Ministry of Agriculture and the state government in purchasing motorcycles for that patrol of the farmlands. Fielding questions from journalists on the Command’s Our community no longer safe over herdsmen's influx —Iwo youths By Shina Abubakar OSOGBO—SOME angry youths in Iwo, Osun State, yesterday, expressed worry over the invitation to herdsmen by the town’s monarch, Oba Abdulrosheed Akanbi, saying that the town is no longer safe. The youths also stated that the rate of influx of herdsmen into the community is worrisome, hence the decision to alert the public. Addressing newsmen, under the aegis of Iwoland Concerned Youths, its President, Taiwo Ewonda expressed worry over the influx of unknown herdsmen into the community since the blanket invitation by the monarch, urging the state government to take urgent steps to halt the trend. Oba Akanbi had last Friday, February 19 stated that Iwo is ready to host more Fulani herdsmen and urged repentant herdsmen to relocate to the town. But Ewonda said the invitation has led to an unexpected influx of unknown herdsmen into the community, making Iwo a security threat. He said: “While it is expressly agreed that the operational Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is magnanimous enough to have allowed the freedom of movement and domiciliary in any part of the country by the preparedness to prevent kidnap attacks on schools and farmlands, Odumosu said: “The Command has designed an Operation Order to cater for the deployment of personnel, surveillance, patrol and strict monitoring of schools and students’ activities across the state, in its bid to provide adequate security for both public and private schools in Lagos State.” Besides, the Police boss said: “The command has also established synergy between schools, parents, communities and other security agencies in the state on the need to improve on the existing security architecture in various schools to forestall any attack or ugly incidents. “The surveillance will be extended to farmlands. indigenes of this nation, such constitutional liberty should, however, not be a license for visitors to be burdensome in another land. “We are genuinely worried by the unexpected and injurious recent pronouncements of some leaders and traditional rulers of our community which are tilting towards threatening of the subsisting peace in our community Anti-Open Grazing Law: Again, Ondo Amotekun seizes over 100 cattle By Dayo Johnson AKURE—THE Ondo State Security outfit, codenamed Amotekun, yesterday, seized another 100 heads of cattle, for violating the state government’s open grazing law. Vanguard gathered that the cattle were seized, after they allegedly destroyed farmlands in Ipinsa, in the Ifedore local government area of the state. It was gathered that some farmers in Ipinsa sent a distress call to the chairman of the security outfit, Chief Adetunji Adeleye following the invasion and destruction of their farms. Consequently, Amotekun Unfortunately, some of them are located in rural areas that are not motorable. So, we have discussed with the Ministry of Agriculture that all farms must have government permits, as most of them are just farming without letting the government know what they are doing. It makes it difficult to provide security for them. “We are going to incorporate the Ministry of agriculture and traditional rulers for data of farmlands. By the time this is put in place, we will begin to map out security strategies for them. At the moment, we are patrolling areas that are motorable. When we get the data and with the assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture and state government, we hope to use motorcycles to access the difficult terrains.” “Equally worrisome was the recent open invitation needlessly extended to the Fulanis by a revered traditional ruler in our community which has formed the pedestal for an influx of Fulani herdsmen into our constituency of recent like never before. “It is our observation that this intended royal tact of extension of a blanket invitation to Fulani herdsmen is less thoughtful which is capable of rocking the subsisting peace of Iwoland. operatives were deployed to the community. The herders, according to findings, fled the scene while the cattle were arrested by the security personnel. Meanwhile, there was heavy vehicular traffic for over an hour along the Oyemekun-Oba Adesida road when Amotekun operatives conveyed the seized cows to their headquarters located at Alagbaka Government Reserve Area in Akure. The Amotekun chairman said that the cows were arrested at Ipinsa and have been moved to the Amotekun office. This came on a day after nine herders and 100 cattle were arrested along the Akure/Ilesha road in the state capital. Report him to the gods! Go ahead! Things women do!
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