Yellow Fever Epidemic Looms in Lagos
YELLOW fever has returned as a major scourge across Africa, and Nigeria, Lagos in particular, may be on the verge of experiencing a major epidemic of the disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that about 4.5 million Lagosians could be at risk of infection.
In an effort to contain the looming epidemic, Nigeria and 11 other West African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo - all with the highest burden of yellow fever in the world - are to benefit from a GAVI Alliance $58 million grant to the Yellow Fever Initiative launched by WHO and other partners.
Launching the initiative during the World Health Assembly’s meeting in Geneva last week, WHO Assistant Director-General for communicable diseases, Dr. David Heymann, who explained that the imminent epidemic may not be unconnected with the growing urbanization in Lagos State said the $58 million grant would also help to create a stockpile of 11 million doses of vaccine.
In his words: “Yellow fever has returned as a major scourge and, as urbanization progresses across Africa, the threat of a major epidemic looms even larger. Yellow fever is a dangerous disease which kills up to 50 per cent of those with severe illness. WHO estimates, for example, that this highly transmissible disease could infect around one-third of an urban population, or up to 4.5 million people in Lagos, Nigeria alone.”
It could be recalled that between 1940s and 1960s, widespread mass vaccination campaigns in some African countries had resulted in the almost complete disappearance of yellow fever. However, as immunization campaigns waned, a generation of people grew up with no immunity to the disease, and by the 1990s, the number of annual cases had risen to an estimated 200,000 per year, with 30,000 deaths, and urban outbreaks were starting to occur.
Until now, vaccine has often been too expensive for countries to afford when faced with a host of competing health problems and coverage rates in some West African countries are critically low. In Nigeria, for example, the coverage rate in 2005 was an estimated 36 per cent. However, it is recommended that, to stop yellow fever infections from spreading into an epidemic, immunization coverage must be at least 60 to 80 per cent. Now, thanks to the $58m GAVI Alliance grant, immunization against yellow fever will be kick-started.
Over the next four years, the world’s 12 highest-burden countries, including Nigeria, will be able to implement special vaccination campaigns to immunize more than 48 million people.
The initiative is a ground breaker from many perspectives. “Existing routine immunization programmes target children. If we were to do only routine child immunization for yellow fever, we would need decades to reduce the risk of epidemics and the international spread of the disease.”
WHO Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR), Africa, Dr. Mike Ryan said “with this initiative, we will be working in the short- and long-term to strengthen primary health care systems.”
He noted that every age group is at risk, and vaccination is a crucial weapon to prevent cases and epidemics.
Project Manager of the Yellow Fever Initiative in WHO’s EPR Department, Dr. Sylvie Briand said, “Immunization against yellow fever is all the more critical now because of increased population movements in Africa. As we see more people moving to cities for work, but returning to their rural villages from time to time, we also see the possibility of yellow fever epidemics multiply.”
Gangs Clash in Oshodi District of Lagos
Fighting broke out between rival political gangs in Oshodi today, just one week after six youths were killed in gang fighting. Animosity that has been growing since the April 14 election of Action Congress gubernatorial candidate Babatunde Fashola. The fighting by supporters of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate has resulted in many commercial businesses being shut down for extended periods of time. Many shops and stalls have been burned and destroyed. Local police will attempt to bring the gang members together for peace talks this weekend. This district of Lagos is not very far from the international airport.
Niger Delta Militants, Villagers Plead For Help From Incoming Administration
Speaking from a safe place on Okrika Island, Commander Marcus Appolos, from the militant Ijaw Youth Council, says the incoming president and new state governors should break from past policies.
"Whatever has passed, if really they want to serve the people, they should take corrections of the past and bring everybody together, and put people in places where they are supposed to be, to take a new dimension, a better emancipation for the people," he said.
The 28-year-old commander says it is just not fair for so many people to suffer, while so much oil is being taken from their region, making money for just a few officials and foreign-owned oil companies and their shareholders.
"The government has all the money. We do not have the money," he said. "We have the resources but we do not have anything to do with it. So the government uses their own money to oppress us. So that is just the difficulties."
The sounds of a small market are interrupted by the arrival of members from a rival militant group, the Niger Delta Vigilante.
The group's second in command, Ebel Tomma Amakiri, also known by his nickname Kpottoi, which means bad noise, says the government's first priority should be establishing dialogue between armed groups.
"Without any peace, without any cooperation, there is nothing you can do. So that the best thing that we have to agree on a point is that there should be peace. Without peace, you cannot progress, you cannot do anything."
In fishing villages across the water, villagers complain of a lack of piped water, electricity, schools, hospitals and being at the receiving end of violence from rival gangs trying to control different areas.One fisherman, Samuel Tamuno, says he was recently attacked by a gang known as the Germans.
"All my things are lost. My house is burned, my canoe, all the nets are finished. I just stay empty. I do not have anything to manage, to get money. I just struggle," he said.
Another fisherman, Emmanuel, speaking in Okrika through an interpreter, explains oil has made his life much worse."Look at ships, the ships are very close to them," he said. "Sometimes, they are polluting the water. There is no fish here in the sea. Things are very difficult for them. They need the incoming government to assist them to alleviate their suffering."
Asked to comment on the allegations, oil companies said they were too busy dealing with the dozen foreign oil workers currently being held hostage for ransom by militants.
Newly-elected ruling party officials were returning from Abuja, where they concluded a seminar on better governance, including for places like here.
Labor unions have called for a stay at home strike to coincide with the swearing-in of the next president, Musa Yar'Adua and new governors on May 29, following elections marred by fraud and violence.
Global Oil Giants Afraid of Niger Delta
In oil-rich southeastern Nigeria there is a panic in the management bodies of multinational oil companies amid the increasing abduction and pipeline destruction cases this month.
On Saturday, May 19th, militants killed three Nigerians and kidnapped two Indians at the newly privatized Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited/Indorama, in Eleme.
Since May 1 after the general election in Nigeria, about 30 expatriates were kidnapped in the southeastern Nigeria's Delta region and from the beginning of this year, the number of abducted expatriates rose to more than 90.
Also, many oil facilities have been destroyed by the militants, leading to sharp reduction in the crude oil output from 2.5 million barrels to 1.9 million barrels per day in the country.
Nigeria: Robbers Kill Policeman, One Other in Lagos
Two persons, one of them a police corporal were killed by rampaging robbers along Ipaja road, Agege, this weekend, while scores of others were injured.
The Police corporal identified as Adejo Adebayo, attached to the monitory unit of Elere division, was in the company of his six other colleagues, performing a stop and search routine job, when the robbers who were fleeing a robbery scene unexpectedly opened fire on them.
Sources at Elere division told Vanguard that the police team led by a sergeant, arrived a hot spot at Olufunmilayo bus-stop about 7.30 pm in a white Mitsubushi commercial bus with registration number XA 478 GBA, on Saturday.
While on the job, report said the late corporal stopped a motorcyclist on which was a man with a 'Ghana must go' bag, to ascertain the contents in the bag. But unknowing to him, a six man robbery gang which was fleeing a robbery ahead was closely following behind apparently thinking that the policemen had got wind of their whereabout, four members of the gang reportedly came out and fired sporadically in the direction of the policemen, killing corporal Adebayo on the spot and collected his AK 47 rifle.
One of the stray bullet was said to have hit a shop owner who was trying to escape for dear life while several other people were injured in the stampede caused by the shooting.
The bandits reportedly fled the scene before the arrival of a back-up from Elere division, leaving in their trail the death of two persons.
Policemen at the Elere division still wore a mournful look when Vanguard visited yesterday. They were seen discussing the tragedy that befell their colleague on Saturday night. While some vowed to get their pound of flesh, others however expressed fear and uncertainty over a job they considered very tasking.
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