Health
New Year Message: Bello Insists COVID-19 Not Deadlier Than Other Diseases
From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has reiterated his earlier position on the ruse about COVID-19.
He maintained that COVID-19 is not deadlier than other diseases ravaging the country hence equal attention should be given to cholera and other more deadly diseases.
In his new year broadcast to the people of the State on Saturday, the Governor indicated that from the death ratio of COVID-19, which stands at 1.
39% in Nigeria it is not deadlier than other diseases.Recall that in a viral video, the Kogi governor condemned the use of the vaccine, saying it was meant to kill people.
Speaking in the said video while addressing a crowd, Bello doubted the authenticity of the vaccine, saying there was no cure for HIV and many other diseases troubling mankind.
“Vaccines are being produced in less than one year of COVID-19. There is no vaccine yet for HIV, malaria, cancer, headache and for several other diseases that are killing us. They want to use the (COVID-19) vaccines to introduce the disease that will kill you and us. God forbid,” he had said.
He even used what happened in Kano during the Pfizer polio vaccines that crippled and killed many children as a reason for Nigerians to beware.
“If they say they are taking the vaccines in the public allow them take their vaccines. Don’t say I said you should not take it but if you want to take it open your eyes before you take the vaccines.”
Continuing with his new year message, the Governor said
“So far we have found no reason to believe that the death ratio of Covid-19 which currently stands at 1.39% in Nigeria is evolving into deadlier numbers than those of the other diseases we have to grapple with too.
“In fact, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed again this month that Cholera had claimed far more lives in Nigeria in 2021 than the dreaded coronavirus pandemic has been able to do since its advent.
“Given this information and the need for us to protect all of our people against all threats, as well as the competing demands on our scarce resources, we frankly cannot in good conscience justify spending more on Covid-19 than cholera, malaria, or any of the childhood killer diseases.
“By distancing ourselves from the mass hysteria in this way we have been able to keep a cool head and confront the pandemic without fear. “The result is clear – Kogi State remains safe. Our public health institutions are in a permanent state of heightened vigilance but our society is opened for life and business to go on.
“Our people are also free to come and go while observing appropriate public health and hygiene protocols, especially those that engender protection against diseases generally and improve the overall wellbeing of the general populace. “This is why we continue to sensitise against open defecation, production, sale and consumption of unsafe foods and disregard for appropriate postures or covers while sneezing or coughing.
“Today, global expert opinion is swinging towards allowing populations and governments to have more elbow room in deciding how they will respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I can say that in this regard Kogi State has been an outlier in Nigeria since the pandemic began and we intend to keep it so.
“You, our dear people, can continue to trust us to keep monitoring the evolving situations closely, with an eye on the science while allowing common sense to guide us in your overriding best interests. “We will also continue to keep you updated with the right information, and when necessary, effective advisories.”
On the new year he said,
“We celebrate the divine gift of life as we bid 2021 goodbye and welcome 2022. We thank God for navigating us through a year which tried the courage of many individuals and the resilience of practically every nation on the earth.
“The last 12 months have been challenging – for the world, for Nigeria, and for us in Kogi State. The battles we have fought and the victories we have won do not speak of our own wisdom or power but of the mercy and compassion of the Almighty God, to Whom be all the Glory.
“Like the year 2020, 2021 found itself in the shadows of the Covid-19 pandemic. Everything from international travel to national economies continue to be adversely impacted by the genuine efforts, but also by the uncertainties and yes, shenanigans, around the disease.
“As of today, scientists and world leaders are reworking their responses to Covid-19 as the world learns more about how it mutates and spreads.
“Not surprisingly, at least to me, much of the new knowledge continue to affirm positions I have adopted from the beginning.
“In the face of conflicting information about the disease, the Kogi State Government that I lead chose early to keep an eagle eye on the case Fatality Rate of Covid-19 more than any other epidemiological event or data set associated with it.
“We also do same with each variant. This helps us to determine quickly how worried we should be for our people with each variant. Once we know the likely fatal impact, we are then able to make intelligent governance decisions on how to respond to it.
“We are then able to compare and contrast this information in relation to the threats posed by perennial killer diseases in our society such as malaria, cholera, lassa fever, yellow fever, meningitis, etc.
“It becomes easy after that to allocate resources appropriately towards each public health threat confronting us.
“In 27 days’ time we will step into the 7th year of our exciting journey in this New Direction. For each and every one of those years, I make bold to say, we have made consistent progress towards sustainable, verifiable and replicable results.
“Every year we have reached for new altitudes in governance and established fresh attitudes in leadership in pursuit of our electoral promises to you. Today, our results speak louder than ourselves.
“When we emphasise the successes of our response strategy to Covid-19 as I have just done above, we do so as part of accounting for our overall achievements in government.
“Our best value has always come from putting our people and the things that are important to them first. “In our effort to do more of this we made Education, Health, Infrastructure and Utilities, Job Creation and Youth Engagement, Civil Service and Pension Reforms, Agriculture, Security, as well as Cooperation and Integration among all Nigerians in our state our expanded thematic focus in this second term.
“Generally speaking, we have been spectacularly and successfully busy in the health sector, way beyond Covid-19. In our first term we constructed, renovated or equipped hundreds of Primary Healthcare Centres across the state, with a good number of them fitted with solar lighting facilities to ensure that they can operate by day and by night.
He said they have maintained the tempo into his second term as they have been upgrading secondary and tertiary healthcare infrastructure across Kogi State.
“Some of our enduring legacy efforts in this area include the construction of a 300-bed Reference Hospital in Okene. When completed it will have ultramodern equipment for diagnosis and treatment of most diseases occurring in our society.
“We are also renovating and remodeling the Specialist Hospital, Lokoja including the construction of a brand new administrative block.
“At the same time we are building brand new General Hospitals in Badoko, Ajaokuta LGA and Gegu Beki in Kogi LGA.
“We are also constructing a new clinical complex in Prince Abubakar Audu University Teaching Hospital, Anyigba as we rush to start a medical programme in the school.
“In addition, we are constructing an advanced clinical complex in the General Hospital, Isanlu simultaneously with comprehensive overhauls of the Zonal Hospital Idah and Adavi Eba Cottage Hospital.
“So, as you can see, we are not talking COVID for lack of any other achievement, but as a necessary corollary to all we do to secure the healthcare and wellbeing of you great people of Kogi State.”
Health
Expert Advocates For Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Through HIV Self Testing.
From Attah Ede, Makurdi
Eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Nigeria is an achievable goal, but it requires innovative approaches that can address the unique barriers faced by women in underserved communities.
An expert on health related matters, Dr Godwin Emmanuel stated while interacting with newsmen as part of activities commemorating the just concluded World Aids Day in Makurdi, the Benue State capital.
Dr.
Emmanuel who is the Managing Partner/Impact Officer of MOZUK Future Solutions Limited, stated that the World AIDS Day have come and gone, yet Nigeria government must not fail to examine some of the gaps that must be urgently bridged as a nation.He explained that each year, thousands of children are born with HIV, largely due to inadequate access to testing and treatment during pregnancy, disclosing that the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that Nigeria contributes about 22% of global paediatric HIV cases which indicates the urgent need for innovative approaches to curb MTCT.
“This brings me to a recent study in Lagos and Kano which demonstrated how HIV self-testing kits offer a practical, effective, and scalable solution to our MTCT challenges.
“The study interrogates an initiative seeking to integrate HIV Self-Test (HIVST) kits into TBA services as part of a broader strategy to eliminate MTCT.
“The intervention targeted underserved communities where healthcare access is limited, leveraging the trust and accessibility of TBAs to distribute self-testing kits and provide essential counselling”.
According to him, the study, led by Dr. Toriola Adebayo of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and Dr. Usman Bashir of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, articulated the role of local expertise in advancing healthcare solutions tailored to community needs.
“In this intervention, 182 TBA clinics across three local government areas (LGAs) in Lagos and Kano States were equipped with HIVST kits. TBAs received extensive training on the administration of the tests, pre- and post-test counselling, and linkage to care for those who tested positive.
“Among the 1,982 pregnant women enrolled in the study, pre-intervention testing rates were markedly low, with just 60% in Lagos and 38% in Kano having ever been tested for HIV. After the introduction of HIVST, testing uptake surged, with all participants voluntarily using the kits during antenatal visits.
“The results were promising:
HIV Positivity Rate: An overall positivity rate of 0.8% was recorded, with slightly higher rates in Lagos (1.1%) compared to Kano (0.8%).
“First-Time Testers: Remarkably, 80% of those who tested positive were undergoing HIV testing for the first time.
Linkage to Care: All HIV-positive individuals were successfully linked to ART services, demonstrating the effectiveness of the TBA-led model in bridging gaps in healthcare access.
“The success of this initiative exemplifies how HIVST can become a cornerstone of affirmative action against paediatric HIV infections, which was also a critical focus of World AIDS Day observances.
“As evidenced by the success of the Lagos and Kano initiative, when confidentiality, stigma reduction, and leveraging trusted community figures like TBAs are prioritised, HIVST has the potential to transform PMTCT efforts across Nigeria.
“This is even more so with sustained investment, community buy-in, and political will. This can move us closer to a future where no child is born with HIV and every mother has the opportunity to live a healthy, fulfilling life”, Dr. Emmanuel alluded.
He further revealed that HIV self-testing kits offer a simple, private, and effective means of determining one’s HIV status, adding that the kits allow individuals to test themselves using a saliva sample or a small drop of blood, with results available in minutes.
Highlighting the importance, the health, said the convenience and confidentiality of this method are particularly appealing to those who might avoid traditional testing due to stigma or fear of disclosure.
He stated that the fear of being judged or ostracised often prevents pregnant women from seeking HIV testing, stressing that HIVST kits allow individuals to test in the comfort of their homes or a private setting, without fear of disclosure. This is particularly crucial for pregnant women, who may face compounded stigma if diagnosed with HIV.
“Increased Testing Uptake as demonstrated shown the intervention in Lagos and Kano demonstrates that when provided with confidential and convenient testing options, more women are willing to know their HIV status. Early diagnosis is key to initiating ART, which can reduce the risk of MTCT to less than 1%.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), says she supports herbal medicine production in the country.
She said this on a Forum in Abuja.
She, however, explained that for NAFDAC to accommodate herbal medicine as part of its regulated products, such herbal preparation must go through clinical trials.
She disclosed that the major challenge to herbal medicine practitioners is how to secure resources to finance clinical trial for their products, which she said cost a lot of money because it is a major aspect in medicine.
She added that “I believe in natural medicine, I was brought up with it, like the Agbo that we were taking and it was working.
“Herbal medicine or natural medicine work, before I came back home from the United States, I started a research on natural medicine for the cure of sickle cell, my niece who is a sickler got on it and her episodes decreased by 70 to 80 per cent.”
She explained that the agency gives approval for natural medicines once proven it is not toxic, and they have been used and tested before.
“We approve them for two years and then they can renew if they do clinical trial because it is something we are not used to in Nigeria.
“China supports many of these herbal practitioners.”
The director-general also spoke about using fruits and vegetables as medicine to cure some illnesses, adding that some of these fruits contain antioxidants that prevent cancer. (NAN)
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has allayed public fears over the detection of the SARS-CoV-2 XEC subvariant globally.
The Director-General of the centre, Dr Jide Idris, did this in a public advisory issued on Saturday night in Abuja, made available to newsmen.
Idris reassured Nigerians that the variant, though identified in 29 countries, has not been detected in Nigeria.
He said that the XEC subvariant, a descendant of the Omicron JN.
1 lineage, was currently classified as a Variant Under Monitoring (VUM).According to him, this means that it is being closely observed for potential concerns but does not yet pose significant risk.
“The XEC sub-variant has been reported in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa, with Botswana being the only African country to record cases so far.
“While the sub-variant exhibits higher transmissibility, there is no evidence of increased disease severity,” he said.
The NCDC boss said that Nigeria had been monitoring the JN.1 variant, classified as a Variant of Interest (VOI), which has been present in the country since January.
He assured Nigerians that the National COVID-19 Technical Working Group was conducting continuous surveillance and data analysis.
Additionally, he said that a dynamic risk assessment was being organised to strengthen the country’s preparedness and response capabilities.
He urged health facilities nationwide to ramp up COVID-19 testing and forward positive samples to accredited laboratories for genomic sequencing.
He encouraged the public to maintain vigilance and adhere to basic health protocols, including handwashing, mask usage in crowded spaces, and ensuring proper ventilation indoors.
He advised vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, to remain cautious.
“COVID-19 remains a significant risk, particularly for the elderly, individuals undergoing cancer treatment, organ transplant recipients, and those with suppressed immune systems.
“We urge Nigerians to get vaccinated and receive booster doses as recommended,” he said.
The director-general also called on state governments to enhance public health infrastructure, provide resources for improved surveillance and diagnostics, and promote public health education.
He reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to providing Nigerians with accurate and timely information on the evolving COVID-19 situation globally.
He urged citizens to avoid misinformation and rely on verified updates from its platforms.
“For assistance, the public is encouraged to contact the NCDC via its toll-free number 6232 or, WhatsApp: 07087110839, Twitter: @NCDCGov and Facebook: @NCDCgov,” he said.
Report says that the XEC variant of COVID-19 is a recombinant strain, meaning it results from the combination of genetic material from two or more existing variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Recombinant variants can emerge when different strains infect the same individual and exchange genetic material during replication.
This process may lead to new variants with unique properties, such as increased transmissibility, virulence, or resistance to immunity.
While thousands of mutations have been tracked globally, only a few variants are monitored for public health significance.
Nigeria’s NCDC and global health organizations like the WHO continue genomic surveillance to monitor and respond to emerging variants.(NAN)
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