Cholera outbreak in Nigeria brings death toll to 51

The death toll from a cholera outbreak that hit at least 10 villages in Nigeria's southern state of Cross River rose from 20 to 51 on Monday, a local traditional ruler said.

The additional 31 victims died between Sunday and Monday, Bernard Egbe, a tribal chief in the Ekureku community of Abi local government area in Cross River, where the outbreak has been recorded, told media.

Four of the cholera patients in local hospitals are in critical condition, Egbe said.

Local health authorities said on Sunday that the cholera outbreak began on Thursday, prompting the government to deploy human and material resources to the affected villages to prevent the virulent disease from further spreading.

Janet Ekpeyong, head of the Cross River Primary Healthcare Development Agency, told reporters Sunday that the deaths could have been avoided if protocols were followed in the affected villages.

As a measure to manage the outbreak, Ekpeyong said the government had so far established communication with the community leaders to ensure their communities adhere to hygiene protocols to end cholera and other related illnesses in that part of the country.

In addition, she said treatment of the water source and fumigation were ongoing, noting the community had been grappling with challenges associated with a lack of potable water and poor health facilities.

Cholera is characterized in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhea that can lead to death by severe dehydration.

Cholera outbreaks are frequently reported in Nigeria due to a lack of potable water supply, especially in densely populated areas.

Xinhua 

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Nigeria removes COVID-19 testing for international travellers

Nigeria on Monday removed COVID-19 testing requirements for international travellers and it was no longer mandatory to wear masks on flights and inside airport buildings, the airlines regulator said.

In a notice to airlines, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority said travellers to and from Nigeria did not need to undergo COVID-19 irrespective of their vaccination status.

The authority said travellers above 60 years and those with comorbidities were encouraged to use face masks.

Nigeria has recorded 266,381 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic and 3,155 deaths. 

By MacDonald Dzirutwe, Reuters

4,000 Doctors to Leave Nigeria

The National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD’s, recent alarm of a looming mass migration of no less than 4,000 of its members in the nearest future should call for an emergency meeting of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government with the medical service unions to discuss the stoppage of such a haemorrhage.

But, of course, no such a thing may happen because those we elected had for long abandoned the Nigerian healthcare system for treatment abroad. Successive presidential families since 1999 had turned treatment abroad into a fad, unlike the earlier practice where the State House Clinic was properly equipped to take care of them.

The late Mrs Stella Obasanjo received medicare abroad. The late President Umaru Yar’Adua received treatment in Europe and Saudi Arabia till his demise, and the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan also got medicare outside the country. The most celebrated presidential treatment is that of the incumbent president who once spent over three months in a London infirmary and goes there routinely for follow-ups.

The State House Clinic itself which used to receive more budgetary allocation than all the University Teaching Hospitals in the country, has altogether been abandoned because the people who are supposed to use it no longer have use for it.

Because of this neglect, our doctors have steadily been leaving. When the Buhari administration assumed office in 2015, the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, reported that Nigeria had 35,000 doctors out of the 237,000 required to serve a population of about 180 million then. Over seven years later, the number of doctors available in our health system dropped to 24,000 while the population rose to an estimated 211 million.

NARD’s announcement that 4,000 its members are leaving is not surprising. Health workers are in hot demand all over the world, particularly in countries with advanced systems. Two of them, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom in recent years, sent personnel to scout for, or opened their doors to employ our willing doctors. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, despite the migration trend, insists Nigeria has enough doctors.

The consequence of this is that the few doctors who are still available, especially in government hospitals, are over-worked, underpaid and under-motivated. This, certainly, is a trigger for more migrations to places where they will get job satisfaction.

Nigerians have already lost hope that the incumbent regime can do anything about our healthcare system. It has only six months to go. Our attention should shift to the need to elect leaders who have the mindset to revive our health system. Adequately equipping our public hospitals and offering competitive welfare packages for our doctors and other health sector workers can stop and reverse the exoduses. This is in addition to squarely facing challenges in the training of more doctors for our teeming population. 

Vanguard

Related story: Over 10,000 doctors left Nigeria for UK in last 7 yrs

Nigeria suffering from medical brain drain

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Only 3% of the Nigerian population have access to health insurance, and a majority of them are government workers covered under the National Health Insurance system. To bridge the gap, Soso Care, a Nigeria-based health firm is offering health insurance in exchange for collected waste.

CGTN

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For the second year in a row, Nigeria has been ranked as having one of the worst hunger problems on earth. Continued violence in Nigeria is affecting millions of farmers leading to widespread food shortages in the country.

Nigeria strengthens preventive measures following Ebola outbreak in Uganda

Nigeria has strengthened preventive measures at entry points following an outbreak of the Ebola virus in Uganda, said health authorities on Monday.

In a statement, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) said that it has scaled up screening of passengers returning from Uganda at airports and cautioned Nigerians against embarking on non-essential travel to Uganda for now.

The warning is to enable health authorities to determine how the Ebola outbreak will be contained, said Ifedayo Adetifa, head of the NCDC.

"Travellers to Nigeria with recent travel history to Uganda or people already in Nigeria but with recent travel history to or transit through Uganda within the past 21 days are to look out for symptoms," said Adetifa.

Travellers with symptoms including fever, muscle pain, sore throat, diarrhoea, weakness, vomiting, stomach pain, or unexplained bleeding or bruising should promptly call the health authorities for assessment and testing, said Adetifa.

"Such people should not visit health facilities by themselves to avoid further spread through the shared transport system," said Adetifa.

Xinhua 

Related stories: 'Phenomenal' medical staff in Nigeria cut Ebola fatality rate in half

Nigerian government declares ebola outbreak a 'national emergency'

 

 

Nigeria's northwest faces worsening malnutrition

Nigeria faces worsening malnutrition in the northwest due to insecurity, high food prices and the impact of climate change, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) said on Tuesday, calling for the region to be included in United Nations funding plans next year.

Gunmen have terrorised the northwest, killing and kidnapping people for ransom this year. Africa's most populous nation is already grappling with an Islamist insurgency that has displaced at least two million people in more than a decade.

Insecurity has prevented some farmers from planting in a region now experiencing some of its worst flooding in years.

MSF said it had witnessed extraordinarily high numbers of children with malnutrition in five states across the northwest, where about 100,000 were treated for acute malnutrition.

"With increasing insecurity, climate change and global inflation of food prices in a post-pandemic world, we can only imagine this crisis getting worse," Simba Tirima, MSF country representative in Nigeria, said.

"The Nigerian authorities need support to deal with a crisis of this magnitude."

Humanitarian aid groups have largely focused their attention on the northeast, where Nigeria's military is stepping up attacks against the Islamist insurgents.

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

Reuters

Nigeria to produce vaccines locally with Serum Institute of India

Nigeria will partner with Serum Institute of India to start local manufacturing of vaccines used in the country's immunisation programmes, health minister Osagie Ehanire said on Wednesday.

Africa's most populous country imports all of its vaccines, including those used to prevent polio, measles and tuberculosis, but has been seeking foreign partners to produce them at home.

"We hope to start manufacturing some of the vaccines (that) Serum Institute India manufactures and transfer the technology and skills to our people," Ehanire said after Nigeria's cabinet approved the deal with Serum Institute, the world's largest producer of vaccines.

"We are talking first of all the routine vaccines, the ones (for) the standard programme on immunisation, not COVID-19 vaccine."

Ehanire said the venture between Bio Vaccine Nigeria and Serum Institute would start by producing 15% of vaccines used in local immunisation. The government owns a 49% stake in Bio Vaccine and private investors control the rest.

By Felix Onuah

Reuters

FG taking steps to end Nigeria’s reign as top malaria hob

The Federal Government has said although the decline of malaria prevalence from 42 percent in 2010 to 23 percent in 2020 was commendable, it remains committed to ending Nigeria’s reign at the top of the global prevalence table.

Minister of Environment, Barrister Hasan Abdullahi, on Monday reiterated the determination of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to further reduce the malaria scourge to the barest minimum through deliberate targeted interventions in policy implementation.

He spoke at a briefing as part of activities in commemoration of this year’s edition of the WHO’s World Malaria Day, in Abuja.

Abdullahi said, “According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Nigeria has the world’s highest malaria burden with an annual reported cases 51 million and 207, 000 deaths representing nearly 30 percent of the total malaria in Africa.

“It is also estimated that nearly 173 million Nigerians are at risk of being infected.

“This alarming situation brings along with it the economic consequences-absence from work by infected adults, absence from school on the part of infected school children are basic and prominent aspects of concern owing to the high rate of man-hour loss arising from this.

“Similarly, it is estimated that Nigerians lose money running into hundreds of Billion Naira wherein if every infected person treats just a bout of Malaria infection with an average of two thousand Naira twice every year.”

The minister further said, “Several efforts are being made internationally, nationally and locally to combat the Malaria scourge. Only recently, the President and Commander-inChief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Nigeria End Malaria Council (NEMC) where he mandated it to ensure successful implementation of the Council’s programme that should translate into N2 trillion savings from the estimated economic burden of the disease by 2030.

“The Federal Ministry of Environment is solidly behind the President in achieving the onerous target set for the NEMC which is quite achievable with the right implementation of strategies utilizing collaboration and partnership.”

According to him, case management of Malaria has proven to be less effective in the control of the hyper endemic disease.

He equally noted that although control of the adult mosquito bite through the use of Insecticide-Treated (Mosquito) Nets is posting some gains, attaining the desired impact is not near and is unfortunately not too reliable, a strategy.

Abdullahi further said, “It remains critical that hierarchically, effective Mosquito control takes the form of exclusion — removal of suitable vector habitat through sound hygiene and sanitation which stops breeding by preventing egg laying; life cycle control — larviciding, to reduce/eliminate egg hatching; and oiling & aduiticiding which is used for controlling pupacy and adulthood respectively.”

Also speaking at the event, the National Coordinator, Malaria Elimination Programme, Dr. Perpetual Uhomoibhi, who represented the Minister of Health, explained that the Ministery was working with development partners and other relevant stakeholders on workable strategies towards curbing the menace.
She explained that already, the Ministry through its agencies was providing treatments to children under five in 21 out of the 36 states of the federation.

Uhomoibhi also said Nigeria was in line for the WHO approved Malaria vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

By John Alechenu

Vanguard

The deadly virus Nigerians fear more than COVID-19: Lassa fever

The moment Victory Ovuoreoyen heard he had Lassa virus, he thought it was the end. The tradesman could barely walk and feared for his life when admitted to the Federal Medical Centre in the city of Owo in southwestern Nigeria. He ran a fever, was vomiting and had severe diarrhoea.

But after four days in an isolation ward, the emaciated patient can now sit upright on his hospital cot, one of the few patients in the infirmary strong enough to speak. “Before I fell ill, I could not count my bones like this. I lost so much weight,” he says, pointing at his clavicles clearly showing under his loose mustard-coloured shirt.

Doctors have assured the 48-year-old man that he will recover from the illness, an acute haemorrhagic disease similar to Ebola. He is lucky. Although 80 percent of those infected do not get very ill from the virus and most cases go undiagnosed, the death rate among those who end up in hospital is 15 percent, according to the World Health Organization. With an incubation period of between two and 21 days, severe symptoms can start showing a week into the illness. By then it could be too late.

Lassa fever lowers the platelet count in the blood and its ability to clot, causing internal bleeding. Fatal organ failure can follow within days.

Early symptoms include head and muscle aches, sore throat, nausea and fever. Initially, they are indistinguishable from the symptoms of malaria, a common disease in the region. The laboratory of this hospital in Owo is the only one in the state that performs the Lassa diagnostic blood tests and the results are only available after two days. This combination of factors often leads to Lassa being discovered at a late stage, which makes it harder to treat.

Owo, an agricultural market centre 300 kilometres (186 miles) from the Nigerian capital Abuja, is the epicentre of the Lassa outbreak that began early this year, causing more than 160 deaths. At its height in March, the 38 beds in the isolation ward did not suffice and 10 more cots were added for suspected cases. In this part of Nigeria, people fear the Lassa virus far more than the coronavirus. With good reason: Ondo, the state where Owo is located, has since 2020 recorded 171 deaths caused by Lassa, versus 85 from COVID-19, according to the Infection Control and Research Centre at the hospital.
 

‘It is so contagious’

Head nurse Josephine Funmilola Alabi checks the intravenous drip that administers Ovuoreoyen’s antiviral medication and treats dehydration, an issue severely ill Lassa fever patients must battle. Alabi is dressed in a white hazmat suit, surgical cap, face mask and face shield. Only dressed like this may she enter the “red zone”, as the isolation ward for highly contagious patients is called. She also wears disinfected rubber boots and two pairs of surgical gloves. Not a millimetre of her skin is left uncovered. “We take this virus very seriously. It is so contagious that we are only allowed to enter the ward with full PPE,” Alabi says, referring to the personal protective equipment that medical personnel caring for patients with highly infectious diseases wear. Four of the Lassa deaths in Nigeria this year were of medical workers.

Despite its widespread presence in West Africa, the disease remains little known in much of the world. The virus was discovered in 1969 in the northern Nigerian town of Lassa, about 1,000km (621 miles) from Owo. Since then, it has become endemic in at least five countries in West Africa. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, registers the highest number of cases, up to 1,000 a year. This year, in January alone, Nigeria recorded 211 confirmed cases, of which 40 patients died.

Lassa fever infects an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Africans each year, of which thousands die, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Infected people can infect others through bodily fluids. The fever often causes miscarriages and can be passed from mothers to babies. It can remain in breast milk for up to six months. Like other viruses causing haemorrhagic fevers that have no cure and are easy to reproduce, scientists have warned that the Lassa virus could be used as a biological weapon.
 

‘Diseases don’t have boundaries’

The fever tends to strike in impoverished rural areas and food contaminated with rat droppings or urine is often the source of infection. Roasted game, known locally as bushmeat, can also be tainted if the slaughtered animal has been in contact with the rodents. The rats often enter people’s houses in search of something to eat when the rains stop. That is why Lassa fever typically peaks in Nigeria’s dry season, from November to April, although cases persist all year round.

It is not spreading over the world as rapidly as COVID-19 did, says clinical microbiologist Adebola Olayinka. But she warns that this may change. She is an expert in infectious hazardous diseases and coordinates Lassa fever research for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. “Look at the story of Ebola,” she says. “This existed in the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades, but in 2014 very quickly reached West Africa and then England and the US.”

No proven drugs or vaccines protect against Lassa fever, Olayinka says. Currently, the only pharmaceutical used against Lassa fever is ribavirin, an antiviral drug commonly used to treat Hepatitis C. But its effectiveness against the Lassa virus has not been thoroughly researched, and pre-clinical studies and expensive clinical trials are needed to prove the efficacy of the drug. She believes the lack of research into Lassa is because the virus rarely appears in the West.

“Look at the speed with which the COVID vaccine has been developed,” she says. “But if an infectious disease doesn’t affect the wealthy, it won’t get the same amount of attention.” A year after the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 the Access to Medicine Index compiled an inventory of the research and development efforts of the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies. It counted 63 projects concerning coronaviruses, five covering Ebola and zero for haemorrhagic viruses spread by rodents like Lassa, mostly found in Africa and Latin America.

Yet the West is not invulnerable to Lassa. Earlier this year, a couple in England was diagnosed with the disease. The husband contracted it during a visit to Mali and then infected his pregnant wife. Their premature baby died of the virus in a Bedfordshire hospital. “The West needs to realise that a disease anywhere could be a disease everywhere,” warns Olayinka. “Diseases don’t have boundaries.”
 

‘They caught it on time’

In Owo, head nurse Alabi continues her rounds. On this particular day in April, 20 of the 38 beds are filled. This is the only treatment centre for Lassa fever in Ondo, a state half the size of Belgium with about 3.5 million inhabitants. A month earlier the ward was filled to the brim. And a couple of years ago so many people were infected that tents for patients were put up on the open grounds next to the bungalow where the Lassa ward is located.

Alabi asks patients how they are doing and checks an intravenous (IV) drip here and there. Apart from anti-viral drugs, patients also are treated with vitamins, antibiotics for additional bacteria infections and malaria medications if they also test positive for that disease. The staff is not supposed to stay in the “red” isolation zone for more than an hour at a stretch, to limit the risk of infection. But during an outbreak such as this year’s, doing rounds in an overcrowded ward can take two hours. “It is a risk you take, for the sake of the patients,” she says matter-of-factly.

Hospital beds with chipped enamel bars line the corridors of the “red zone”. IV bags hang next to the cots. Alabi explains that the patients lie in the hallway so that the staff can hear them when they weakly call for help. Disinfecting the medical staff’s protective boots and face shields occurs around the clock. Used gear goes into large vats of chlorinated water and is then put on wooden stands to dry in the tropical sun.

Around the corner, under the marquee covering the path to the clinic’s entrance, Dr Sampson Omagbemi Owhin holds a consultation with a patient, Olaide Akinyola. Seated on plastic chairs in the open air they discuss her recovery.

Akinyola, a 38-year-old primary school teacher, returned to the Lassa ward this morning for a check-up. She ended up in the treatment centre a month and a half ago after feeling ill for a couple of days. She originally thought the bleeding was from a heavy menstrual flow, but when she felt too dizzy to stand upright, she got tested for Lassa. Within hours of receiving a positive result, she was admitted to the clinic.

Akinyola was lucky, says her doctor: “They caught it on time”. She received a blood transfusion and was treated with ribavirin, which in this case appeared to have helped.
Information is a weapon

Being a teacher, Akinyola has easy access to information about the virus, she says. “That’s why I was not too scared when I was admitted here,” she explains. “I knew my chances were good since they caught the virus early.”

Information is an important weapon in the fight against Lassa fever, her doctor affirms. Even after a patient has been discharged from the ward, they can continue to suffer from bleeding for a long time. Haematologist Ohwin explains that, aside from persistent blood disorders, the virus has been found in semen two years later – a reason why recovered male patients are advised to use condoms during sex.

Later that day, 42-year-old Kayode Omolayo shuffles out of the patient exit of the Lassa clinic and heads towards the visitors’ area, a concrete floor covered by an orange aluminium roof shelter. The platform underneath is bisected by a ditch, separating the ill from the healthy. A metal sign in the grass directs visitors to the fenced-off area where, from a safe distance, they can greet the sick who have recovered enough to get out of bed.

After 10 days in the Lassa department, Omolayo is keenly aware of the need for hygiene at home. “The first thing I’ll do is clean everything from top to bottom and check for rat droppings,” she says.

At the Lassa ward, head nurse Alabi steps out of the red zone into the station where protective gear comes off and plastic barrels are placed to disinfect footwear and face shields that will be reused. As she carefully peels off the layers, the 50-year-old shares her concerns about the future.

According to the nurse, NGOs supporting the fight against diseases like Lassa fever are finding it increasingly difficult to raise funds. That means the bottled water for the staff to rehydrate after hours in sweaty moon suits has been cut. The delivery of personal protective equipment is slowing down. Most Nigerians cannot afford the $1,000 fee for treatment, and she fears that the medical centre might run out of money to offer the current free care.

In the meantime, the staff is gearing itself up for another wave. The smile on Alabi’s face disappears as she squints through her rectangular glasses and states solemnly: “The next deadly Lassa outbreak is only a matter of time.”

By Femke van Zeijl

Al Jazeera

Video - Nigeria's medical council bans certificates issued from Ukrainian universities

Nigeria's Medical and Dental Council says it will no longer accept certificates issued by medical schools in Ukraine. CGTN's Kelechi Emekelan explains why.

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Nigeria bans sale and consumption of bushmeat over monkeypox spread

Nigeria has banned the sale and consumption of bush meat in a bid to control the spread of monkeypox disease.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dr Mohammad Abubakar on Tuesday, May 31, directed hunters and dealers of bush meat in the country to stop the business.

In Nigeria and most parts of Africa, bushmeat is a delicacy. It refers to any wild animal that is killed for consumption, including antelopes, chimpanzees, fruit bats, rats, porcupines and snakes.


Abubakar also urged Nigerians to avoid contact with persons suspected to be infected with monkeypox.

“Hunters and dealers of ‘bush meat’ must desist from the practice forthwith to prevent any possibility of a ‘spill over’ of the pathogen in Nigeria.

Abubakar also noted that the ministry was collaborating with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other stakeholders in the One Health Team to ensure the situation is contained and brought under control.

Earlier this week, Nigeria confirmed 21 cases of monkeypox since the beginning of 2022, with one death reported, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said.

AfricaNews

Video - Nigeria records 21 Monkeypox cases, 1 death in 2022

Nigeria has confirmed 21 cases of monkeypox since the start of the year. According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, one death from the virus has been reported this year. From September 2017 to the end of April 2022, the country reported a total of 5-hundred and fifty eight suspected cases, and confirmed 231 of them. From January 1st to April 30th this year, the county has reported 46 suspected cases and confirmed 15 from 7 states.

Nigeria CDC confirms 21 cases of monkeypox in 2022

Nigeria has confirmed 21 cases of monkeypox since the start of the year with one death reported, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said.

“Among the 21 cases reported in 2022 so far, there has been no evidence of any new or unusual transmission of the virus, nor changes in its clinical manifestation documented (including symptoms, profile and virulence),” NCDC said in a statement late on Sunday.

Monkeypox, a usually mild viral infection, is endemic in the African countries of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria.

But it has caused global alarm after more than 200 suspected and confirmed cases of the virus were detected in at least 19 countries since early May, mostly in Europe and the Middle East. No deaths have been reported so far.

The NCDC said out of 61 suspected cases of monkeypox reported since January, 21 had been confirmed with one death, that of a 40-year-old man. The cases were reported in nine states and the federal capital Abuja.

Six of the cases were detected this month, it said.

Al Jazeera

Video - Nigeria’s medical brain drain

Nigerian doctors are leaving Nigeria in droves to seek better working conditions abroad. Health workers say decades of neglect by the government has led to mass exodus. While the doctor-patient ratio recommended by the World Health Organization is one for every 400, but in Nigeria, its one for 2,500. Nigeria’s nurses’ union says 11,000 members have left the country in the first three months of 2022, to work in hospitals abroad. Senior consultants say while the immediate future is bleak, the government can reverse the trend. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reports from Kano, Nigeria.

Video - Nigerian invents smart bra to tackle breast cancer

 

A Nigerian woman is leveraging technology to add more impetus in the fight against breast cancer. Kemisola Bolarinwa, a robotics engineer, has invented a wearable smart bra that can help detect breast cancer early. This could be a public health breakthrough as breast cancer is common in Nigeria and it's one of the leading causes of death in women.

The Nigerian entrepreneur who runs ‘an Amazon for blood’

Temie Giwa-Tubosun had an epiphany 13 years ago when she met an expectant mother who was about to lose her baby. Giwa-Tubosun was working as a 22-year-old intern with a health services organisation in northern Nigeria, doing surveys of rural people seeking care. The family of the mother-to-be thought she would die in a complicated labour because the baby was upside down in a twisted breech position. This wasn’t an unrealistic fear, in a country where one in 22 women perish in pregnancy, during birth, while undergoing abortions, or afterwards.

As it turned out, the woman got surgery and survived. But her baby didn’t, and that death shook Giwa-Tubosun deeply. She didn’t leave her hotel room for four days and barely ate. “I thought it was so unjust that women could die in childbirth,” she recalls. “That got me hooked on maternal healthcare.”

That incident, as well as the difficult birth of her own son later on, got her thinking about blood. Giwa-Tubosun had been contemplating a career that was health related in some way, and she knew that postpartum haemorrhaging was the leading cause of maternal mortality in Nigeria, which records nearly eight times the global number of 211 deaths per 100,000 live births. That is partly because decent healthcare in Nigeria is elusive to all but the rich; the World Health Organization (WHO) consistently ranks it among the worst globally.

In 2010, Giwa-Tubosun won a fellowship at the WHO in Geneva. She went on to work on various health projects, including in Uganda and in Minnesota in the United States. In 2012, she made the leap and founded an NGO known as the One Percent Project, whose raison d’etre was to educate Nigerians on blood donations and distribute them better throughout the country. This led to the creation four years later of LifeBank, a distribution business that uses data and technology to get urgent blood supplies to hospitals. It serves as a bridge between donors and clinics.

Giwa-Tubosun’s work has earned her praise across the globe including from the World Economic Forum, and she has spoken on influential platforms – such as the TedxEustonSalon – about her vision for tackling blood shortage on the African continent. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said after meeting her in 2016 that “If she actually pulls it off, then she’d show a model that will impact not just Lagos, not just Nigeria, but countries all around the world.” Giwa-Tubosun is pulling it off rather well. Working with over 150 accredited blood banks and 142 employees, LifeBank serves over 600 hospitals across Nigeria and has recently expanded into Kenya, according to Giwa-Tubosun. She says she has distributed enough blood to save more than 100,000 lives.

This social entrepreneurship is all the more significant considering that female executives are few and far between in Nigeria – to which Giwa-Tubosun simply says, “We get to save lives and we get to rescue people.”
Bikes, trikes and drones

Even over Zoom, Giwa-Tubosun exudes power. Al Jazeera catches her at the end of a very long day before she’s had dinner. Yet her energy is high. Even without makeup and in a casual African print dress, she gives off the sort of authority that’s kept her successful in a sector where very few women are visible.

Based in Lagos, the nation’s economic capital, the 35-year-old speaks from the guest room of her house. The walls behind her sport framed pictures of her husband, Kola Tubosun, a linguist and writer, as well as a painting of their son, Enaife, by the prominent essayist and artist Yemisi Aribisala. Not that Giwa-Tubosun spends that much time at home; she works six days a week.

Giwa-Tubosun began LifeBank as a startup with two employees to facilitate moving blood from labs across Nigeria to patients and doctors in hospitals. It began with her personal funds. The company was simply an app then. In 2016, a pre-seed investment of $25,000 enabled the company to move to the premises of a business incubator, CcHUB, in a suburb of Lagos.

She initially envisaged a distribution system for blood from labs to hospitals, focused on mothers. LifeBank’s innovation was to leverage technology to collect inventory data from blood banks and supply blood that had already been screened by the labs to hospitals based on request. Hospitals call LifeBank to place orders 24-7. Initially, LifeBank relied on dispatch riders. The company has evolved into a digital medical distribution company that delivers other critical medical supplies apart from blood, such as oxygen, plasma, and vaccines, to hospitals in every region where they are present.

Giwa-Tubosun is intentional about the areas where the company spreads. “We look for large markets with disorganised health-supply chain systems where our innovation could drive significant impact,” she says. She plans to expand to Ethiopia soon. LifeBank offers a round-the-clock service for the over 500 hospitals in its network and aims to provide access to safe blood in under 45 minutes using bikes, boats, adult tricycles and drones.

Being a 24-7 operation across nine states in Nigeria presents security challenges such as abductions and killings in places like Maiduguri in the north of the country, where Boko Haram is active. Giwa-Tubosun says the company has managed to solve these issues by seeking the protection of local communities. During the street protests in Lagos, in 2020, LifeBank motorbikes ferrying blood were blocked by what some claimed were hoodlums and others the police. After outrage on Twitter, the road cleared for them to drop the supplies at hospitals treating people hurt in the protest.

Security issues aside, Nigeria suffers from a deficit of blood. According to the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS), the country collects about 500,000 pints of blood annually, leaving a deficit of over 73 percent. LifeBank organises blood drives and runs advocacy campaigns to dismantle prevalent myths about blood donation. In addition to this, on a continent where some roads are inaccessible and, in many cities, traffic jams are legendary, the ability to use alternative means of transportation to get to hospitals is critical. “I think of us as the Amazon of healthcare except we work only with hospitals,” Giwa-Tubosun says with her rich laugh. “We bring global standard procurements to African hospitals right on their platform.” The simplicity of the model compared to the impact has surprised her.

And she thinks on her feet. In 2018, a critically ill doctor working at a hospital in Nigeria died because the hospital didn’t have oxygen. When she heard of this, Giwa-Tubosun began thinking of adding medical oxygen to her “store”. A year later, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, LifeBank launched testing centres and delivered medical oxygen to COVID-19 patients in isolation centres in Lagos for free.

Social impact or not, Giwa-Tubosun finds fundraising difficult for a variety of reasons. For a self-confessed introvert, whose natural inclination is to “sit and observe”, the networking required to get financial backers can be painful. Add to that the gender bias that faces female entrepreneurs. Women are generally not taken as seriously as men in this patriarchal society, she says. To make matters worse, healthcare is a particularly difficult sector to raise capital for, because it’s seen as highly regulated, which could make it harder for investors to rake in huge profits. The demand for capital outweighs the supply. “It’s easier to raise for fintech,” Giwa-Tubosun says, frustration evident in her voice. “You’d think COVID would make a difference, but it hasn’t.”

Those who do receive the services in LifeBank’s network are grateful, however, including Kanne Nzeribe. He works in the medical lab at the Zenith Medical and Kidney Center, a clinic in Abuja. “LifeBank is making a huge difference in blood banking, its accessibility and also its affordability,” he enthuses. “They are always available when needed and they’ve helped out our patients a lot and also in saving lives.”
Breaking down barriers

Giwa-Tubosun’s demeanour brightens again when she talks about the culture she’s enabled at work. Her employees call her by her first name, Temie, an unusual move in a society with a hierarchical structure. Elders, bosses and anyone in authority are generally not addressed as such, but, she explains, “I was intentional in breaking down the barriers that would make it difficult for my workers to talk to me.” According to her personal assistant, Aisha Abiola, the boss runs an open-door policy. “She’s accessible to us, especially on issues that affect our lives and work,” Abiola says.

Giwa-Tubosun counts on another fan – her husband, whom she met in 2009 through a mutual friend. “She’s always had a clarity of vision and I find that really endearing,” Kola Tubosun, 40, says when asked about their relationship. “I am inspired by her drive, optimism and ambition.” Unequal in height – he looms more than a foot over her 5-foot 4-inch (1.6m) frame – they share parenting like equal partners, which helps her work the long hours needed to run her company. Giwa-Tubosun wakes up at 4:45am, exercises three times a week for an hour with a personal trainer, takes their son to school and is at work by 7:35am. A hands-on father, Kola does the afternoon shift. He picks up their son from school, supervises his homework, “provides him with blank papers so he can pretend to be a writer”, and plays with him.

Sunday is her one rest day when she makes dinner, which is often a lavish affair involving many intricate dishes from foreign cuisines (she rediscovered her passion for cooking during the pandemic). “I have binders full of recipes,” she says. Recently she “went to India” and made murgh makhani (butter chicken), garlic coriander chapatis, basmati rice, and a strawberry salad. The following week’s exploration involved Szechuan chicken (extra hot), cilantro rice, and a salad of Asian vegetables.

Giwa-Tubosun says she’s always been serious and earnest. “I wasn’t a very social child,” she recalls. She would line up her shoes and pretend they were her students. Instead of playing with her dolls, she organised them. “And I had a strong sense of justice. I was that child that kept pointing out that something was unfair to her parents.” Her biggest role model was the Nigerian human rights lawyer Gani Fawehinmi, who was popular with the masses and less so with the authorities who detained and beat him.

Giwa-Tubosun’s parents, who were educators, moved to the US with her older siblings when she was 10 years old. She and her two younger siblings joined them in Minnesota five years later. Her parents pushed her to do well at school and work hard. Her adopted country gave her superhero movies, which in turn infused a sense of invincibility. “Everyone in America thinks they are a superhero in waiting,” she says.

That industriousness instilled in her childhood has served her well. It has earned her accolades and several awards. In 2019, she won the Jack Ma Foundation’s African Business Hero Award. In 2020, she was presented with a Global Citizen Prize for LifeBank’s novel approach to blood shortages and response to the global pandemic. And this year, at the Cartier Impact Awards ceremony in Dubai, she won the first place honour in the “Improving Lives” category. However, she is keen to point out that while the honours might carry her name, they belong to the LifeBank team. “The people are working 24 hours saving lives,” she says. “I simply built a system to help them do that.” Even more fulfilling than the awards, she says, are the messages of gratitude she gets from patients and their families, sometimes on Twitter where both she and LifeBank are active.

Never content to sit still, Giwa-Tubosun hopes to list the business on the stock exchange in New York. She has set as targets some key milestones: be valued at $1bn, earn $100m in revenue the year before the listing, have free cash flow, and be Pan-African. That’s an ambitious plan for a company that made $1m in revenue last year. She thinks it will take her seven years to get there. “That will require a lot of work, a lot of hard work and figuring out how to fundraise effectively,” she says, her accent straddling two worlds: the Nigeria of her birth and the US of her youth. She also hopes to raise the number of hospitals served to about 14,000. She believes she’s on her way. LifeBank has received funding from pharma companies like Johnson & Johnson, and partnered with Merck on clinical trials. The company picked up its ninth state government partnership, a contract to supply hospitals in Yobe with critical health supplies such as blood and oxygen. “We got this partnership because the government knows that we can solve a problem that they have,” Giwa-Tubosun says. “We got this on merit.” In a country where cronyism is rife, she is particularly proud of this fact.

At a time when many Nigerians are leaving the country – running or “japa-ing”, in local parlance – Giwa-Tubosun has no intention of doing so. At times she’s tempted, but she’s going to stay put. She believes in her mission and wants to see LifeBank reach more villages and cities across the continent. “Africa is a tough place to tie your future,” she says, “but it’s also a place of opportunity.” 

By Chika Unigwe 

Al Jazeera

Video - Production of eco-friendly sanitary towels in Nigeria

 

Nigerian woman produce eco-friendly sanitary towels to help girls stay in school.

Nigeria confirms first cases of Omicron among travellers from South Africa

Nigeria confirmed its first cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant among two travellers who arrived from South Africa last week, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said on Wednesday.

The NCDC also said retrospective sequencing of previously confirmed cases among travellers to Nigeria had identified the variant among a sample collected in October. It did not give details.

"Given the highly likely increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant, it is imperative to put in place measures to curb community transmission," NCDC said in a statement.

The announcement by NCDC comes ahead of a meeting between South African President Cyril Rampahosa and his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja later on Wednesday, where the issue of the Omicron variant is likely to be discussed.

Several nations have imposed travel restrictions on countries in southern Africa, where the variant was first reported, which Ramaphosa says is unjustified and hurts developing nations. 

Reuters