Health
Nigeria Monitors New Strains of COVID-19, Other Diseases
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said it is on high alert amid global concerns over new strains of COVID-19.
This was made known yesterday at a press conference in Abuja, where the health body said over 663 million confirmed cases and over 6.7 million deaths had been reported globally.
Speaking at the event, NCDC Director General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said: “Globally, more than three million new cases and ten thousand deaths have been reported in the week of December 26, 2022, to January 1, 2023. This represents a reduction in weekly cases and deaths of 22 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively.
“The African Region reports a 73 per cent and 32 per cent decrease in new cases and deaths compared to the previous week.
“In the Americas and Western Pacific (including China), there has been a 74 per cent and 29 per cent increase in cases and a 49 per cent and 35 per cent increase in deaths, respectively. The increase in these countries, in part, is a component of the winter exacerbation of respiratory illness,” the DG said.
Dr Adetifa said the resurgence of COVID-19 in China, following the relaxation of the country’s zero-COVID policy and the unsurprising increase in cases, hospitalisation and deaths, also attracts concerns about the possible emergence of new variants.
He said the variants circulating in China are predominantly BA.5.2 and Bf.7. According to him, these variants have been circulating in other parts of the world, including Nigeria, since 2022.
The Omicron sub-variant, XBB.1.5, which was originally detected in New York in October 2022, is also on the increase in the US and Europe and has now been identified in more than 25 countries. The XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of Omicron, but it is not clear if it is more virulent than its ancestor.
The epidemiologist noted that in Nigeria, NCDC has 5,708,974 samples tested, 266,463 confirmed cases, 259,850 discharged cases and, unfortunately 3,155 deaths recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said COVID-19 has and continues to follow a different epidemiological course in Nigeria and most of Africa, with lesser cases, admissions, and deaths from the Omicron sub-lineages.
On efforts to contain the current threat, he said: “The NCDC-led COVID-19 Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) is closely monitoring the rise in the new Omicron sub-lineage, XBB.1.5, in the U.K. and U.S., and the current resurgence in China and other countries with a high volume of traffic to and from Nigeria.
“The sub-lineages partly responsible for the current increase in COVID-19 cases in other countries (XBB. 1.5 and BF.7) have not yet been detected in the country as of November 2022. We are working on completing testing and analysis for December 2022.
“Since the detection of the Omicron variant in December 2021, its sub-lineage (BQ.1/BQ.1.1) has been dominant in Nigeria.
“It is important to note that regardless of COVID-19 variants in different parts of the world, severe disease, admissions, and deaths disproportionately affect the unvaccinated and those with established risk factors, such as older people and people with co-morbidities.
“The most important action for Nigerians to take is to get vaccinated against COVID-19, as the vaccine is the most important intervention for preventing severe disease, hospitalisation, and death.
“Additionally, though COVID-19 protocols and restrictions have been eased, people at high risk for severe COVID-19 are advised to continue to adhere to recommended non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPIs), such as the use of face masks, good hand and respiratory hygiene and avoidance of crowded spaces.”
On other infectious diseases, he said: “We continue to respond to infectious diseases, including Lassa fever, Mpox, and more. To date, there are 8,202 suspected cases and 1,067 confirmed cases of Lassa fever across 27 states and 112 council areas.
“Cumulatively, from Week 1 to Week 52, 2022, 189 deaths have been reported with a case fatality rate (FR) of 17.7 per cent, which is lower than the CFR for the same period in 2021 (20.0 per cent). 72 per cent of all confirmed Lassa fever cases in 2022 were reported from three states (Ondo, Edo and Bauchi).
“Most recently, the NCDC, in collaboration with partners, federal and state stakeholders of the Technical Working Group (TWG), successfully conducted finalisation and validation of a five-year strategic plan to reduce Lassa fever fatality ratio in the country to less than ten per cent.
“We continually appeal to Nigerians to practice personal and environmental hygiene to prevent the infestation of rats in our homes and communities, especially during this dry season, which is when we typically record more cases of Lassa fever cases.”
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
An organisation known as GoMed Nigeria is offering free reproductive health services to Nigerian students through a digital self-care platform.
This is being delivered through a partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Lagos State Government.
The pilot scheme will be available to students of the University of Lagos. They will enjoy easier and more private access to essential health products, accurate information, and professional support.
Young Nigerians face some of the highest rates of unintended pregnancy and unmet need for contraception in the world.
Cost, distance, stigma, misinformation, and fears about confidentiality routinely stop students from seeking the products and guidance they need, with consequences that include unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted infections and interrupted education.
The self-care platform is designed to remove each of these barriers. Through the platform, students receive free contraceptives and other sexual and reproductive health commodities provided through the Lagos State Ministry of Health and UNFPA, exclusive discounts on health essentials, and fast, discreet delivery directly to campus and student hostels.
Students can also access trusted sexual and reproductive health information and services through UNFPA’s SoftLife 247 and U-Plan platforms. Through U-PLAN, they can chat directly with qualified Family Planning Service Providers to receive accurate information and address their concerns. They can also confidently engage with GoMed’s registered pharmacists for confidential, judgement-free guidance on medicines and other health products.
“Students should be able to get reliable health information and essential products without cost, distance or fear of judgement becoming barriers.
“This platform brings free sexual and reproductive health commodities, other affordable health products and professional guidance together, with discreet delivery directly to students on campus,” the chief executive of GoMed Nigeria, Mr Anthony Edeki, said.
Also speaking, UNFPA in Nigeria Resident Representative, Muriel Mafico, said, “As the UN agency mandated for “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights”, we are committed to reducing preventable maternal deaths and addressing the unmet need for family planning, including by providing and overseeing access to life-saving commodities worldwide.
“Working alongside our partners, we’re helping roll out the digital Self-Care Platform—so that vital, life-changing information can reach more people, more easily. Together, we want to empower Nigeria’s next generation to make informed health choices and achieve stronger health outcomes and a brighter future.”
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A financing framework to accelerate the electrification of health facilities nationwide has been approved by the federal government.
The approval was announced at the third meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee (IMSC) of the Nigeria Power for Health Initiative (NPHI), a presidential programme jointly coordinated by the Federal Ministries of Power and Health and Social Welfare.
The committee was constituted to ensure reliable electricity in at least 30 per cent of Nigeria’s health facilities by the end of 2027.
At the meeting, chaired by the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Mr Isiaq Salako, and co-chaired by the Minister of Power, Mr Joseph Tegbe, members of the Inter-Agency Technical Committee (IATC) presented the recommendations under consideration.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Salako said the Steering Committee approved a financing framework to mobilise investment for healthcare electrification, alongside a facility energy management framework requiring participating hospitals to build sustainable systems for managing their energy infrastructure.
He said the committee also cleared eight (8) private sector proposals for further engagement, drawn from about 70 submissions received during the National Healthcare Electrification Investor Matchmaking Week in Lagos.
The Health Minister added that Energy Management Teams are already in place at federal tertiary hospitals, with state governments being encouraged to set up similar structures. The initiative will now be institutionalised through dedicated budgetary provisions and a full-time Project Coordination Unit to oversee implementation.
On his part, Mr Tegbe declared that the initiative must now move from announcements to actual project delivery.
Describing the NPHI as one of the President Bola Tinubu administration’s flagship programmes, he said the emphasis should shift towards commissioning completed projects that Nigerians can see for themselves, rather than further groundbreaking ceremonies and public messaging.
He emphasised the need for teaching hospitals, state hospitals, and primary healthcare centres to be fully energised, noting that the Rural Electrification Agency has already energised 5 Federal Teaching Hospitals and several other health facilities nationwide.
He also tied the initiative directly to patient outcomes, arguing that dependable power would end hospitals’ reliance on emergency generators, and pledged that the Ministry would continue to prioritise the initiative’s funding needs while ensuring value for money.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have bitterly complained over their inability to track down new cases of Ebola, which has spread into the Republic of Uganda. An estimated 1,635 Ebola cases have been confirmed, and 127 people have died from the dangerous infectious disease in the DRC.
The Ebola outbreak is increasingly impacting social interaction and people-to-people movements, as scepticism toward the disease appears to accelerate among the population, and cross-border movements are being controlled daily. Alarm was sounded last week as the virus moved into new areas of the DRC. In some instances, patient routinely escapes, and limited contact tracing undermines containment efforts. Contact tracing coverage has plummeted to 56.5 per cent, a sharp decline from the 95 per cent target, Health Ministry officials said.
“We remain committed to supporting affected countries until transmission is stopped. We call on partners and donors to urgently mobilise resources to strengthen the response and save lives,” Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday.
Shortage of Medical Kits
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that the three major laboratories, in South and North Kivu, have run out of Ebola testing kits, as infections continue to rise daily. Teams are working through a large backlog of samples from suspected Ebola patients, many of which were collected several weeks ago, to confirm or rule out the presence of the deadly virus.
In a situation report released earlier this week, the global health agency said the labs in major cities including Bukavu and Goma were awaiting the arrival of reagents–substances ​ required to run the tests–to resume work on the backlog of samples.
“Running out of Ebola testing reagents during an active outbreak is a serious setback,” Dr Krutika Kuppalli, associate professor in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern and former WHO officer, told The Telegraph.
“Diagnostics are the foundation of outbreak control; if cases cannot be rapidly confirmed, this may lead to delays in isolation, treatment, and contact tracing, which can allow transmission to continue unchecked,” said Dr Kuppalli.
The Race for Vaccines
Vaccine candidates are racing to fill the gap. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)—a multinational nonprofit organisation that finances vaccine development for emerging infectious diseases—has so far prioritised several vaccine candidates for development.
Two are Ervebo-like prototypes aimed at recognising Bundibugyo’s specific blend of glycoproteins, a platform that showed experimental potential years ago. In 2013, an early version of the vaccine protected 100 per cent of monkeys infected with Bundibugyo. However, because most Ebola outbreaks didn’t involve this species, the vaccine didn’t get the investment needed to become licensed. That’s an outcome CEPI aims to remedy with its latest investment.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and Public Health Vaccines are developing the vaccines, which, like Ervebo, also rely on the vesicular stomatitis virus. WHO called this technology the most promising of the candidates.
VSV-based vaccines are front-runners because the weakened version of the virus used to produce them is so good at replicating itself inside humans—including the small chunk of whatever germ it’s been hybridised with—without causing harm. As a result, a single dose typically leads to a strong immune response.
Another candidate, called ChAdOx1, operates using a similar concept: A virus shows the immune system part of a pathogen to generate a protective response. However, it uses an adenovirus that causes colds in chimpanzees—and is also harmless to humans—that University of Oxford scientists modified to keep it from replicating.
There’s also a vaccine candidate based on Moderna’s mRNA science, which was also used to produce the company’s COVID-19 vaccines. This vaccine employs tiny fat bubbles to deliver genetic instructions to cells on how to produce a small part of the Bundibugyo virus. The immune system generates a protective response, and the mRNA degrades quickly without causing lasting changes to cells’ genetic codes.
US-Backed Kenya’s Quarantine Centre
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has consistently defended the establishment of US-backed health centres in Kenya. The US says it will quarantine citizens exposed to the virus but not showing symptoms in a facility it is building in Kenya, and will not bring them home if they develop symptoms, instead sending them to a third country.
The CDC imposed temporary travel bans last month on people who have been in the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan, including green card holders, who are typically exempt from such bans. It is also screening Americans travelling from those countries at three US airports. The strategy marks a sharp break from past practice as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to keep all cases out of US territory.
There are 13 US treatment centres in a government-funded hospital network for severe infectious diseases ready to handle Ebola patients. Public health experts have, however, called on the government to bring any sick Americans home for treatment, and local protests at the Kenya site have led to at least two deaths. A Kenyan court has ordered a halt to the construction.
WHO Appeals for International Community Support
In a rapid and comprehensive response to WHO’s appeal to marshal resources for support of Ebola prevention, the United States has provided an additional $38 million. The additional funds brought the total amount committed by the U.S. to more than $200 million in direct funding, the State Department said in an official statement.
CDC model scenarios show that without strong public health interventions, the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the DRC could become as large as, or even larger than, the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, the agency said.
In modelled scenarios where the isolation of patients is limited, the outbreak could become one of the largest ever documented, said Jason Asher, director of the CDC’s Centre for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics.
From Addis Ababa, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) also said it had received a €11.5 million renewed commitment from the European Union Commission (EU) to support a stronger preparedness and coordinated response to the Ebola outbreak. Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General, Africa CDC, described the partnership with the European Union as respectful and without any conditionality, a type of partnership the continent needs.
The package is aimed at reinforcing the EU Commission’s support through the Africa CDC emergency response to the Ebola crisis, within the long-standing and comprehensive AU-EU health partnership. This demonstrates the central role of Africa CDC in coordinating the continental response to health emergencies, as well as the EU’s action as the world’s largest humanitarian contributor.
This includes €6.5 million to strengthen the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative, to help equip frontline teams, train healthcare workers and improve surveillance through diagnostics and an in-kind contribution of €5 million worth of testing equipment, including rapid diagnostic devices and lab test kits, to be deployed quickly where they are needed most. The EU’s partnership with Africa CDC spanning technical expertise, capacity-building, and policy dialogue continues to play a key role in building resilient health systems.
Ebola epidemic at G7 summit
Amid the horror of the Ebola epidemic, world leaders gathered at the G7 summit in France were urged to find the “political will” to push through the final part of the Pandemic Agreement on Monday. In a joint letter, Brazil’s President Luiz Lula da Silva and WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged leaders gathered on the shores of Lake Geneva to get the “benefits sharing” annex of the deal signed with a “sense of urgency.”
The Pandemic Agreement, which seeks to ensure the world is better prepared for the next global outbreak, was agreed last year but a vital element of it was deferred because of arguments over its wording. It is unclear, and perhaps unlikely, that a truly global agreement on benefits sharing can be reached.
Nevertheless, an agreement between the remaining 192 member states of the WHO is possible and would represent a major step forward. “Every month this annex stays unfinished is a month the world is less ready than it could be, and people are less safe than they deserve to be,” say Mr Lula da Silva and Dr Tedros. “Finalising this Agreement, through a shared commitment to one another, is our collective promise to protect humanity.”
The epidemic, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment, was declared on May 15. It has since spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, regions marked by insecurity, displacement and cross-border movement.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, is situated in the central African region. With a population of around 124 million people, it shares borders with the Republic of Congo and Angola to the south, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north, and also with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika) to the east, and Zambia and Angola to the south.
