Health
COVID-19:Oyo trains health workers on decontamination response
The Seyi Makinde -led government in Oyo state on Tuesday trained no fewer than 77 environmental health officers on containment and decontamination response initiative to prevent the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the state.
Also, each team had been provided with a revolving N500,000 seed grant for the purchase of chemicals and logistics.
The state’s Team Lead of the Containment and Decontamination Project, Prof. Olanike Adeyemo who disclosed this during a training programme on COVID-19 Decontamination Response Network held at the University of Ibadan ahead of the commencement of the initiative, also noted that the initiative would focus on the next phase in the containment of COVID-19 in the state.
The training had in attendance representatives of environmental health officers in all the 33 local government areas which had been divided into seven zones.
According to Prof. Adeyemo, “COVID-19 has spread beyond Ibadan and what that means is that the government has to be responsive to do what is right.
“You can imagine if there is an incidence in Ibarapa and another one in Iseyin, it would be very difficult for the state containment team to cover all.
“So what the government is doing is to decentralise the containment efforts.
“Containment is not all about decontamination, it is a lot of things, so this is embedded in the local government system. Every local government has an environmental health unit.
“These are the people that are being trained because they are on the staff of the Oyo State government already to be able to take up this task as frontliners,” she added.
Speaking further, she stressed the need for self policing, disclosing that compliance form had been made available to report violators of COVID-19 guidelines.
Reacting to the high rate of COVID-19 cases in the state, Adeyemo explained that there was the need to work more on compliance to reduce infections.
‘If you look at the mortality rate and you look at Oyo State and compare it with Edo state that is behind us and you compare the mortality, definitely they are under reporting in those states.
“I think Oyo State is doing more testing and we are reporting a closer to accurate number and that is why we are high there.
“But when you compare the mortality rate for people behind Oyo State on the NCDC list of confirmed cases then you will see that their mortality is higher.
“And it is just science, the more the cases the more likely people will die. So it’s easy to extrapolate that those states that have very high mortality but low numbers of confirmed cases are under reporting”, she continued.
Also commenting, Mr Mojeed Mogbonjubola, the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, informed that the decentralisation of containment was the initiative of the administration.
“It is quite unfortunate that the pandemic is spreading really wide and we couldn’t contain it in Ibadan.
“What His Excellency is trying to do in conjunction with the University of Ibadan is to extend the committee’s team to other regions of the state.
“This is about a call to service. Like I always advise people it is a privilege for everybody to be part of this and it is something that will stay with us for a very long time.
“Since there is no vaccine to control the virus the only way is to contain it and decontaminate affected zones,” he submitted.
Remarking, the Personal Assistant to Governor Makinde, Alhaji Akeem Azeez urged residents to own their actions as well as their safety since the virus had spread all over the state.
Mr Tunde Adeyanju, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, averred that there was the need for a very good response in view of the rate of infections in the state.
A technical expert in the team, Prof. Victoria Adetunji, however urged participants to adhere strictly to precautions in handling the decontamination equipment while engaging in evaluation of their activities.
The West African Society of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition (WASPEN) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make clinical malnutrition a national healthcare priority, warning that the crisis is growing but remains largely overlooked in Nigeria’s healthcare system.
WASPEN’s Founder and President, Dr. Teresa Pounds, made this appeal on Monday during a press conference ahead of the 2025 WASPEN Clinical Nutrition Conference, scheduled for June 17–19 in collaboration with the National Hospital Abuja.
Themed “Bridging the Gap: Integrating Hospital and Community Malnutrition Care in Developing Countries,” the event aims to foster solutions for hospital and community malnutrition.
Describing malnutrition as “the skeleton in the hospital’s closet,” Dr. Pounds emphasised the need for urgent awareness, policy reform, and collaboration among healthcare stakeholders to ensure effective hospital nutrition programs.
“Many patients in Nigerian hospitals suffer from inadequate nutritional support, leading to prolonged hospital stays, increased complications, and higher mortality rates. This issue must be addressed at the highest level,” she stated.
The press conference was attended by the management of Genrith Pharmaceuticals Limited, a major partner, led by its CEO, Chief Emmanuel Umenwa.
Call for National Clinical Nutrition Policy
Dr. Pounds, a U.S.-based specialist in critical care nutrition and a board-certified nutrition support pharmacist, urged the government to implement a national policy framework to support specialised clinical nutrition interventions. She stressed the importance of integrating mandatory nutrition screening and intervention into all healthcare facilities.
She also called on the Federal and State Ministries of Health to expand and enforce standardised clinical nutrition policies, ensure hospitals conduct structured nutrition screening for all patients, makes medical nutrition therapy accessible and affordable, and support research and local production of specialised nutritional products.
She further encouraged NAFDAC, NIPRD, pharmaceutical companies, and NGOs to collaborate on research, funding, and product development to improve hospital and community-based nutritional care.
Invest in Africa’s food markets to win the war on hunger, boost nutrition – AfDB
“We need a national framework that ensures no patient suffers due to a lack of proper nutrition,” the expert stressed.
Conference to Attract Top Medical and Policy Experts
Speaking on the upcoming conference, Dr. Pounds noted that it will bring together leading medical experts, policymakers, and healthcare stakeholders to develop strategies for addressing malnutrition.
Prominent figures expected at the event include Prof. Ali Pate, Coordinating Minister of Health (Special Guest of Honour), Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT (Chief Host), Prof. Muhammad Raji Mahmud, Chief Medical Director, National Hospital Abuja (Host), Prof. Audu Bala, President, Nigerian Medical Association (Keynote Speaker), Pharm. Ibrahim Tanko Ayuba, President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (Guest of Honour), and Prof. Salisu Maiwada Abubaka, President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria (Guest of Honour) admiration.
Pre-Conference Activities
Prof. Raji Mahmud, Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital Abuja, represented by the Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Pharm. Adesola Clara assured that the hospital has the necessary facilities and expertise to host a successful conference. He emphasised that the hospital is fully prepared for the programme.
Also, the WASPEN Central Planning Committee, led by Mrs. Ghinsel Blessing, revealed that pre-conference activities will include a hands-on training workshop on nutritional kits in hospitals, scheduled for June 16, a health walk to raise awareness about hospital malnutrition, expected to be led by First Lady Sen. Oluremi Tinubu.
With malnutrition posing a silent but deadly threat to healthcare outcomes, WASPEN hopes that the Tinubu administration will take decisive action to integrate nutrition-focused interventions into Nigeria’s health policies.
The 2025 WASPEN Clinical Nutrition Conference is expected to be a game-changer in shaping the future of clinical nutrition in Nigeria and West Africa.
Two US biotech companies say the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them to conduct clinical trials of their gene-edited pig kidneys for human transplants.
United Therapeutics along with another company, eGenesis, have been working since 2021 on experiments implanting pig kidneys into humans: initially brain-dead patients and more recently living recipients.
Advocates hope the approach will help address the severe organ shortage. More than 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting transplants, including over 90,000 in need of kidneys.
United Therapeutics’s approval, announced Monday, allows the company to advance its technology toward a licensed product if the trial succeeds.
The study authorization was hailed as a “significant step forward in our relentless mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs,” by Leigh Peterson, the company’s executive vice president.
The trial will initially enroll six patients with the end-stage renal disease before expanding to as many as 50, United Therapeutics said in a statement. The first transplant is expected in mid-2025.
Meanwhile, rival eGenesis said it had received FDA approval in December for a separate three-patient kidney study.
“The study will evaluate patients with kidney failure who are listed for a transplant but who face a low probability of receiving a deceased donor offer within a five-year timeframe,” the company said.
Xenotransplantation — transplanting organs from one species to another — has been a tantalizing yet elusive goal for science.
Early experiments in primates faltered, but advances in gene editing and immune system management have brought the field closer to reality.
Pigs have emerged as ideal donors: they grow quickly, produce large litters, and are already part of the human food supply.
United Therapeutics said trial patients would be monitored for life, assessing survival rates, kidney function, and the risk of zoonotic infections — diseases that jump from animals to humans.
Currently, there is only one living human recipient of a pig organ: Towana Looney, a 53-year-old from Alabama who received a United Therapeutics kidney on November 25, 2024.
She is also the longest-surviving recipient, having lived with a pig kidney for 71 days as of Tuesday. David Bennett of Maryland received a pig heart in 2022 and survived 60 days.
The Swiss government said Thursday it aimed to overhaul its law on medically-assisted reproduction to legalise egg donations and give broader access to sperm donations.
Currently egg donations are not allowed and only married couples can access sperm donations.
The Swiss parliament has long said it wants to change that, and has asked the government with coming up with a proposal to provide broader access.
A government statement said it had “decided to completely revise the law on medically assisted reproduction in order to adapt it to the current context” and had asked the interior ministry to draft a proposed law by the end of next year.
The government said it wants to legalise egg donations in cases where a woman in a couple is infertile, as a parallel to the already legal use of sperm donations in cases of male sterility.
Bern said its priority was “the protection of donors and the welfare of the child”, stressing that “this protection cannot be guaranteed if parents resort to egg donation abroad”.
The government also said it wanted to expand access to both egg and sperm donation to unmarried couples.
After Switzerland legalised same-sex marriage in 2022, married lesbian couples have also had access to sperm donations.
But the government said the current law barring unmarried couples from access to such medically assisted reproduction was “outdated and no longer corresponds to social reality”.
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