Health
US President, Trump finally signs $900bn COVID-19 relief bill
US President, Donald Trump, after delaying for nearly a week and under pressure from all sides, finally signed a massive $900 billion stimulus bill Sunday, in a long-sought boost for millions of Americans and businesses battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The package “providing coronavirus emergency response and relief” is part of a larger spending bill that, with Trump’s signature, will avoid a government shutdown on Tuesday.
“I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP (Paycheck Protection Programs), return our airline workers back to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution, and much more,” the president said in a statement from his Christmas vacation at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The turnaround came after a day marked by calls from all sides of the political spectrum for action to avert an economic and social disaster, especially for America’s vulnerable populations.
Two federal unemployment benefit programs approved in March as part of an initial Covid-19 relief plan expired at midnight on Saturday, cutting off an estimated 12 million Americans, according to The Century Foundation think tank.
The relief package, which was first passed by Congress on December 21, extends those benefits as well as others set to expire in the days ahead.
But for days, Trump had refused to put his signature on it, calling the bill a “disgrace” and catching both Democrats and Republicans off guard with his complaints, which came after months of negotiations.
Influential Republican senator Mitt Romney said he was “relieved” at the signing. “Help is now on the way to workers, families, and small businesses across the country who are desperately in need,” he tweeted.
Earlier Sunday, he had urged Trump to “immediately sign or veto the COVID-19 relief package so Congress can act before it’s too late.”
Crucial aid
In his statement Sunday, the president continued to push for the $600 direct payments to US taxpayers spelled out in the bill to be more than tripled, and argued the legislation included too much excess spending on unrelated programs.
He has not said why he waited until the bill was already approved to make his views known.
The new stimulus package extends federal aid to the unemployed until mid-March, and provides guaranteed loans and billions of dollars in aid to small businesses, restaurants, hotels, airlines and other companies.
It extends the moratorium on evictions of people unable to pay their rent, suspends foreclosures and provides funds for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
The aid is essential to the world’s largest economy, hit hard by restrictions put in place to halt the spread of Covid-19.
“I applaud the President’s decision to get billions of dollars of crucial COVID-19 relief out the door and into the hands of American families,” tweeted Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called the bill “a down payment on what is needed to crush the virus, put money in Americans’ pockets & honor our heroes.”
“We must quickly take further action,” she added in a tweet.
‘Chaos and misery’
Romney was not the only politician to have urged the president to change course Sunday.
“I understand he wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks, but the danger is he’ll be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this to expire,” Republican Senator Pat Toomey told Fox News on Sunday.
Senator Bernie Sanders said that “what the president is doing right now is unbelievably cruel.”
“Many millions of people are losing their extended unemployment benefits,” he said on ABC.
“They’re going to be evicted from their apartments because the eviction moratorium is ending.”
Sanders said increased direct payments could be approved in the coming days.
Democrats in Congress sought Thursday to approve a measure to increase the direct payments in line with what Trump wants, but Republicans blocked it.
It was seen largely as a theatrical move with little hope of passage designed to expose the rift between Republicans and the outgoing president.
AFP
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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