Spain dragged into Nigeria's tomato crisis

The streets of the eastern Spanish town of Bunol turn red and gooey every year on the last Wednesday of August, as tens of thousands of people gather to celebrate La Tomatina. It's not an event that has caused much of a stir on social media outside the country, but in the past few days Nigerians have been been distracting themselves from their own tomato crop crisis by making good-humoured jabs aimed at the European festival.

The topic of tomatoes - a staple of the Nigerian diet - is currently not a laughing matter outside the digital realm in Nigeria. A state of emergency has been declared in the tomato sector in Kaduna state, in the north of the country and farmers are said to have lost up to 80% of their tomato crop.

The culprit is a moth called Tuta Absoluta. The agriculture commissioner in Kaduna state said the price of a punnet has risen from $1.20USD to more than $40. Some reports said that in three local government areas, about 200 farmers lost 1 billion naira ($5.1 million) worth of their tomatoes.

Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, told local media that his office had commissioned experts to look at the issue as "ordinary pesticides cannot tackle the disease because the tomato moth multiplies so fast."

The situation is so bad that it was dubbed 'Tomato Ebola' and the term trended on Twitter for hours on Wednesday.

But what's all this got to do with Spain and La Tomatina?

Well, if you've not heard of the festival, tens of thousands of people from all over the world gather in Spain to take part in an enormous tomato fight. Some estimates say that more than 100 tonnes of tomatoes are thrown during the event. And this has not been lost on Nigerian social media.

One Nigerian news site even posted an article entitled "Five tomato photos that will make Nigerians cry" which featured shots of revellers mucking about in the red gold at La Tomatina.

But what does Bunol think of this reaction? The town's mayor told BBC Trending that the festival "should not be blamed" for Nigeria's tomato crop crisis and that he is "open to (see) how we can help, but the problem is very big and we are very small."

Rafa Pйrez Gil told us that he was aware that Nigerians had taken to Twitter and Instagram recently to lament (albeit in a very tongue-in-cheek manner) the waste of tomatoes in La Tomatina, but he wanted to assure them that most of the tomatoes used in the August food fight were past their sell-by-date and on the verge of rotting.

"Their problem would exist whether our festival happened or not," the mayor said. He added that he would be open to talking about the issue with Nigerians but was unsure what they as a town could do about it. He conceded that food wastage was an issue that merited a wider discussion. "If you look at the garbage bins in Spain, there is more waste thrown away every day than tomatoes used at La Tomatina."

We are not certain whether this information will comfort Nigerians or make more of them see red.

BBC

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Nigeria receives largest donation in combating worm disease

Merck, a science and technology company, announced Tuesday that the largest single delivery of praziquantel tablets in the history of the Merck Praziquantel Donation Program recently arrived in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

The West African country has received around 34 million tablets for mass distribution to school children.

With this, Merck has donated more tablets to a single country than it did to the entire continent in 2012 (27 million).

Today in Geneva, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Folorunso Adewole, expressed his country’s thanks to Merck and the World Health Organization (WHO) for their joint efforts in the fight against the neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis.

Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck, met the minister on the occasion of the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of WHO, in Geneva. The participants included Dr. Kesetebirhan Admasu, Minister of Health of Ethiopia, as well as WHO Assistant Director-General Dr. Ren Minghui.

“We want to eliminate the insidious worm disease and give children the opportunity to participate in the economic development of their home countries. Our donation of 34 million tablets to WHO for Nigeria – enough to treat 13.6 million school children – shows that we are on the right track. However, millions of children still suffer from schistosomiasis. And we know that we alone cannot solve the problem with our tablets,” said Mr. Oschmann.

In Africa, Merck is supporting educational and awareness programs, researching schistosomiasis therapies for very young children and cooperating with partners in the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance, among other things.

“Furthermore, in the future we will collaborate even more closely with our partners to finally eliminate schistosomiasis,” Mr. Oschmann continued.

“With more than 235 million people requiring treatment, schistosomiasis is one of the most prevalent tropical diseases in Africa. The worm disease is widespread in all regions of Nigeria, above all among children. We are therefore grateful for every sustained initiative that supports us in fighting schistosomiasis,” said Mr. Adewole.

Mr. Admasu added, “Merck’s commitment not only helps children who are ill – it also relieves the public healthcare systems of the affected countries.”

In his own comment, WHO Assistant Director-General, Minghui, said, “Medicine donations such as this are essential to the fight against neglected tropical diseases. If we are to meet the ambitious sustainable development goals, we need the strong engagement of the private sector, sectors outside health and all development partners.”

As part of its responsibility for society and within Health, one of its corporate responsibility strategic spheres of activity, Merck is supporting WHO in the fight against the worm disease schistosomiasis in Africa.

Praziquantel is well tolerated and the most effective treatment to date for schistosomiasis. Since 2007, more than 74 million patients, primarily school children, have been treated. To this end, Merck has donated over 340 million tablets to WHO.

According to WHO, Nigeria is the world’s most endemic country for schistosomiasis. It is estimated that around 37% of the overall population (64.1 million people) requires treatment. Nigeria has been participating in the Merck Praziquantel Donation Programme since 2008.

Schistosomiasis, WHO says on its website, is a disease of poverty that leads to chronic ill-health.

“Infection is acquired when people come into contact with fresh water infested with the larval forms (cercariae) of parasitic blood flukes, known as schistosomes,” the world health body said.

“The microscopic adult worms live in the veins draining the urinary tract and intestines. Most of the eggs they lay are trapped in the tissues and the body’s reaction to them can cause massive damage.

“Schistosomiasis affects almost 240 million people worldwide, and more than 700 million people live in endemic areas. The infection is prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical areas, in poor communities without potable water and adequate sanitation.

“Urogenital schistosomiasis is caused by Schistosoma haematobium and intestinal schistosomiasis by any of the organisms S. guineensis, S. intercalatum, S.mansoni, S. japonicum, and S. mekongi.”

To date, through WHO Merck has donated nearly 105 million tablets to Nigeria, making it the main beneficiary country of the donation program. In total, nearly 20 million Nigerian patients have been treated to date, primarily school children.

Premium Times

Nigeria doing everything it can to get a permanent seat in the UN

The Federal Government said on Tuesday in Abuja that it was doing everything possible for Nigeria to get a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. 

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, stated this while on a familiarization tour of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Abuja. 

Onyeama said that Nigeria had played important roles in peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace enforcement globally, and had contributed and sacrificed human and financial resources. 

“We are doing everything possible to get a permanent seat at the UN Security Council; we are looking at its materialisation. 

“Africa is being prospected to have two permanent seats and we are saying that Nigeria should naturally have one.

“It is part of our foreign policy that West Africa and Africa have peace and we are spending money that we don’t even have to achieve on that mission,” he said. 

Onyeama regretted the various conflicts confronting the country, notably, the Boko Haram insurgency, the renewed Niger Delta militancy and the farmers/herdsmen conflicts. 

According to him, violent conflicts have been a major bane of Africa’s development and no enduring development can be achieved in an atmosphere devoid of peace. 

“Since independence, conflicts have been the bane of our development in Africa and we as a country play very important roles in peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace enforcement on our continent. 

“In various ways, we have contributed; through the ECOMOG, formation of AU Peace and Security Commission, Nigeria is there,” he said. 

He said that Nigeria was the sole Permanent Member of the AU Peace and Conflict Commission, in recognition of the roles the country had played towards a peaceful Africa. 

The minister regretted that the conflicts in the country had persisted till now, and said that IPCR needed to fashion out how to be in proactive mood rather than adopting fire-brigade approach. 

“We need IPCR to be able to provide policy makers with very useful roadmaps to follow and I don’t think we have given enough of attention to the institute to carry out those tasks. 

“You (IPCR) need resources to be a Centre of Excellence; of course, your centre of excellence means peace and security for us in Nigeria,” he said. Earlier, the Director-General of IPCR, Prof Oshita Oshita, said that the institute had the mandate to conduct empirical researches that would lead to peace and conflict resolution in Africa. 

“The first work of IPCR was Strategic Conflict Assessment of Nigeria, which received the UN’s commendation and has been used as a recommendation for other countries,” he said. 

Oshita said that the publication had been updated till 2012, but that paucity of funds stalled subsequent publications, including the launch of the National Peace Architecture, recommended by the UN. 

He said that there was no better time that Nigeria, Africa and the world needed the institute than now, that crises had created unprecedented humanitarian crisis around the world. 

He appealed to Onyeama to intervene in the zero capital budgetary allocation to the institute so that it could attain its status of a Centre of Excellence in Africa.

Vanguard