Edo socio-cultural group lauds Gov. Obaseki over anti-land grabbing law

By Isaac Eranga

Chief Dr Omogiade Enoyiogiere Edokpolo

Benin City: The Edo indigenous leader and founder of Edo Progressive Indigenous Association (EPIA)- Chief Dr Bishop Omogiade Enoyiogiere  Edokpolo has lauded the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, for heeding to his plea and that of Edo indigenous people, by  assenting on the bill amending private property protection law of 2017 into the new Edo State private property protection law of 2021. This new law apart from banning the activities of community development association, also put an end to the activities of the Okhaigele. 

According to Bishop Omogiade Edokpolo, "the ousting of the activities of  Okhaigele in Benin kingdom, will help fast track  development in the kingdom. When the governor put an end to the activities of CDAs, the Okhaigele took over the proscribed CDA's activities and turned themselves to warlords in their various communities, thereby confiscating landed property belonging to individuals.

"The same duty they were doing as CDA, was what they were also doing as Okhaigele. At a time when it seems the land grab act has been abandoned, this amendment surprising came on board. With this amendment, both local and international investors in the diaspora will now have trust in the land act administration of Edo State. 

"Local and international investors in the dispora had earlier threatened a rethink in investing in the State. This was contained in a statement signed by the President and Founder of Edo Indigenous Movement (EIM), also known as Edo Progressive Indigenous Association (EPIA) and made available to newsmen in Benin City.

"The Edo indigenous investors and foreign investors in the diaspora made their position known while looking at  the attack meted on the leader of Edo indigenous movement who has been campaigning to attract Edo indigenes and nonindigenes in the diaspora to come to Edo State to invest, assuring them that Edo is a safe haven to invest. The investors opined that if the Edo indigenous leader could be a victim of land grab act and in the process assulted by his fellow indigenes, they have no option than to have a rethink about investing in Edo State. 

"This was a clarion call to Governor Obaseki, traditional rulers, and the various security agencies,  to reassure the investors and Edo indigenous people living in the diaspora who are concerned about the high level of insecurity in the State, that the State is now safe for them to invest. In measuring this assurance, the people needed a clear prove of the enforcement of the land grab act. This should serve as a renewed that the Governor would put in enforcing the land grab act", the statement said.

"However, the Police in Edo State had proved that Edo can be a safe place for investors to put their money, by arraigning in court those land grabbers that assaulted me in Benin in order to confiscate my landed property. The amendment of the 2017 private property protection law, has made Edo State safer for investors to do legitimate business", said Dr. Edokpolo.

While assenting to the amendment of the private property protection law, Gov. Obaseki said  the law affects law and order in the State, saying the law not only ban the Community Development Associations (CDAs) but also all sorts of splinter groups like Okhaigele or  people who have come up to forcefully take other people's landed properties in their communities.

The Governor said a special court shall be set up to swiftly try offenders and if guilty, they will face the consequences.

WHO warns that HIV infection increases risk of severe and critical COVID-19

A new WHO report confirms that HIV infection is a significant independent risk factor for both severe/ critical COVID-19 presentation at hospital admission and in-hospital mortality. Overall, nearly a quarter (23.1%) of all people living with HIV who were hospitalized with COVID-19, died. 

The report is based on clinical surveillance data from 37 countries regarding the risk of poor COVID-19 outcomes in people living with HIV (PLHIV) admitted to hospital for COVID-19. 

It found that the risk of developing severe or fatal COVID-19 was 30% greater in PLHIV compared to people without HIV infection.  Underlying conditions such as diabetes and hypertension are common among PLHIV. Among male PLHIV over the age of 65 years, diabetes and hypertension were associated with an increased risk of more severe and fatal COVID-19. These conditions are known to put people at increased risk of severe disease and death. 

This highlights the need for PLHIV to stay as healthy as possible, regularly access and take their ARV medications and prevent and manage underlying conditions. This also means that people living with HIV – independent of their immune status - should be prioritized for vaccination in most settings. An informal WHO poll revealed that out of 100 countries with information, 40 countries have prioritized PLHIV for COVID-19 vaccination.

The analysis is informed by data from WHO’s Global Clinical Platform for COVID-19, which collects individual-level clinical data and characterizes COVID-19 among individuals hospitalized with suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection around the globe.

Later this week, WHO will also release updated Guidelines on HIV prevention, testing, treatment, service delivery and monitoring. These guidelines provide over 200 evidence-informed recommendations and good practice statements for a public health response to the prevention, testing, and treatment of people living with HIV.  These recommendations help to ensure that people with HIV can start and continue treatment during times of service disruption as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The report released today will have important policy implications – providing data to confirm that HIV is a risk for poor outcomes from COVID-19 – and increases the urgency to see all PLHIV on treatment and with access to COVID-19 vaccinations." said Dr Meg Doherty, Director of WHO’s Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes.

HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed 34.7 million lives so far. To reach the new proposed global 95–95–95 targets set by UNAIDS, countries need to redouble  efforts to avoid increasing HIV infections due to HIV service disruptions during COVID-19 thereby slowing down the public health response to HIV.

Study unveils a blueprint for treating a deadly brain tumor

NIH-funded, preclinical study suggests a common form of brain cancer may be treated with combination radio- and chemotherapy

In a study of mice and human brain tumors researchers at the University of the Michigan, Ann Arbor, searched for new treatments by exploring the reasons why some patients with gliomas live remarkably longer than others. The results suggested that certain patients' tumor cells are less aggressive and much better at repairing DNA than others but are difficult to kill with radiation. The researchers then showed that combining radiation therapy with cancer drugs designed to block DNA repair may be an effective treatment strategy. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The researchers focused on low-grade gliomas that carry a disease-causing mutation in a gene called isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1), which encodes a protein known to help cells produce energy. This mutation is found in about 50 percent of cases of primary low-grade gliomas, a common and lethal form of brain tumor. Glioma patients whose tumors have mutations in IDH1 are typically younger and live longer than those whose tumors have the normal gene.  These tumors also often have mutations in genes called TP53 (a tumor suppressor gene) and ATRX (a DNA-protein complex remodeling gene).

"Every year thousands of people are diagnosed with brain cancer and have little hope for long-term survival," said Maria G. Castro, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery at Michigan Medicine and a senior author of the paper published in Science Translational Medicine. "Our team's mission is to find life-saving treatments for these patients. The results from this study could be a blueprint for extending, if not saving, the lives of many patients."

The researchers recreated the patients' tumors by genetically engineering mice to grow brain cancer cells that have the disease-causing mutations in IDH1 along with mutations in TP53 and ATRX. Like the patients, these mice lived longer than control mice whose tumors were programmed to have normal IDH1 while still harboring the mutations in TP53 and ATRX. 

When the research team examined the tumors, they found that the IDH1 mutation made the glioma cells less aggressive. The cells divided at a lower rate than the controls and were much less likely   to trigger tumor growth when implanted into mouse brains.

They also discovered that the IDH1 mutation, in the presence of mutations in TP53 and ATRX, made the tumors resistant to ionizing radiation, a treatment that kills cells often by damaging DNA. For instance, radiation exposure extended the lives of mice that were implanted with control tumors but had no effect on mice implanted with IDH1 mutant cells.

Further experiments provided a possible explanation for this resistance. The results suggested the disease-causing mutation changed the activity of IDH1 which, in turn, triggered a cascade of chemical reactions that modified the cancer cells' genes in a way that increased the manufacture of proteins known to repair damaged DNA.

"Our results demonstrate that the metabolic changes caused by the IDH1 mutation reprograms brain cancer cells," said Dr. Castro.

These results led the researchers to formulate and test a new combination therapy. They found that they could extend the lives of mice with mutant IDH1 tumors by exposing them to radiation while also injecting them with anti-cancer drugs designed to block DNA repair. In contrast, treating these mice with either radiation or one of the drugs alone had no effect. Several of the findings seen in mice were also seen in human gliomas grown in petri dishes.

"These findings have the potential to impact many younger glioma patients with low grade tumors by either 'curing' them or extending their lives," said Jane Fountain, Ph.D., program director, NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "The preclinical model Dr Castro's team developed will be extremely valuable to cancer researchers. It closely mirrors the human disease."  

Dr. Castro's team has started planning a Phase 1 clinical trial which will test the safety and efficacy of the combination therapy strategy outlined in this study.

This study was supported by grants from the NIH (NS094804, NS105556, NS076991, NS096756, NS099427, NS103500, NS106887, EB022563, CA224160, CA009676, CA151022, DK097153).

NINDS <http://www.ninds.nih.gov> is the nation's leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.

How to have safe Delivery of pregnancy

FAMILY PLANNING WITH ERANGA ISAAC
+2348059233001, srhealthadvocate@gmail.com

How to have safe Delivery of pregnancy

FINDINGS according to the World Health Organisation, show that about 287,000 women worldwide die from pregnancy-related causes each year, and approximately three million newborns do not survive past the first 28 days of life. The majority of these deaths occur in developing countries at or around the time of delivery, and result from treatable conditions that could be prevented with adequate care.

At this juncture, it is imperative for us to make haste to point that more than a third of women in developing world do not give birth in a health facility that has properly trained staff and adequate equipment. The majority of these women with an unmet need for delivery care – 36 million out of the 44 million – live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. These findings come from a new Guttmacher Institute Study, Adding it up: The Need for and Cost Maternal and Newborn Care-Estimates for 2012, by Susheela singh, Jacqueline E. Darroch and Lori S. Ashford.

In a release by the Guttmacher Institute in May 28, 2013, between 2008 and 2012, the proportion of women in the developing world who delivered in health facilities increased from 55% to 64%. However, the proportion varied widely across sub-regions. In 2012, roads rates were lowest in Eastern Africa (44%), Western Africa (47%) and South Asia (51%) and highest in South America (94%), Central Asia (95%) and Eastern Asia (99%). Despite the substantial improvements in recent years, 44 million women in the developing world, as well as their newborns, lacked facility-based delivery care in 2012. the unmet need for delivery care was many times higher in the 69 poorest countries (49%) than in the rest of the developing world (6%).

“Delivering in a health facility with the assistance of trained health professionals and having access to emergency care should complications arise are absolutely critical to saving lives,” said susheela Singh.

“But making sure women receive adequate antenatal care is no less important to protecting the health of pregnant women and their newborns, and improvements in this area are happening much too slowly.”

Overall, in 2012, only about half (55%) of women who gave birth in the developing world had at least four antenatal visits, the minimum number recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Because access to care largely depends on the strength of a country’s health system, there is a significant disparity between the proportion of women receiving adequate antenatal care (the WHO – recommended 4+ visits) in the 69 poorest countries (44%) and the proportion receiving such care in developing countries with higher per capita incomes (81%). In sub-Sahara Africa, progress in providing antenatal care has been minimal; the number of women lacking appropriate care actually increased between 2008 and 2012, because increases in service provision did not keep pace with the rising number of births each year.
The study also found that obtaining antenatal care does not necessarily mean that a woman receives all of the essential services needed to ensure a healthy pregnancy. For example, in the developing world, about one-third of women with some professional antenatal care did not have at least one urine test, and a similar proportion did not have blood tests are recommended to screen for hypertensive disease and to assess anemia status and the need for iron supplementation. Among women who gave birth in 2012, 41% of those in sub-Sahara Africa and 37% of those in the 69 poorest countries did not take any iron supplements.

Providing the current level of pregnancy care to women and newborns costs about US$11 billion per year; providing the WHO-recommended level of antenatal, delivery, newborn and postnatal care to all women – both those currently receiving services and those who have unmet need for care – would require doubling expenditure levels to US $24 billion. Like current spending, the additional US $13 billion in costs could be shared among national governments, donor agencies and households.
“Extensive efforts have been made in recent years to improve reproductive health services and reduce maternal and child mortality, and although we are beginning to see the impact of that investment, the level of unmet need for essential care for mothers and newborns remains very high,” said Jacqueline E, Darrock. “The tremendous gains that would result from providing quality pregnancy and delivery services to all women and families would far outweigh the cost of providing these services to all who need them.”

Edo Refs set for a mock fitness test exercise

By Our Correspondent

In a bid to improving the fitness of Edo referees, the Edo State Football Referees Coumcil said all was set for a mock fitness test exercise to usher in new training programs designed by both the national and state training departments of referees.

Speaking at the end of a training section at the UNIBEN Sports Complex in Benin, the Chairman of the Council, Mr. Johnbull Okundolor said the training program was in line with the one designed by the National Training Officer of the Nigeria Football Referee Association (NRA), Olori Sarah Jumoke Adeniran FIFA (Rtd.). He said the Council will not compromise on training standard, and urged all to cooperate with the training department. Mr. Okundolor emphasised that attendance to the training programs, is what guarantees match placement.

"The National Training Officer of the NRA has designed a training program that will be beneficial to all active Referees, we of the Edo State Council will consolidate and improve on it, though, our training department led by FIFA Efosa Igudia has also drew out training programs that are of international standard.

"Better times are ahead of Edo Referees as modality is on ground to increase the number of FIFA badged referees in the State. With these training programs, I believed it will be achieved", Mr. Okundolor said.

Also speaking, the Edo State Training Officer, FIFA Efosa Celestine Igudia said the training program became necessary especially as the Confederation Cup is fast approaching. FIFA Efosa also said the training will go a long way in preparing Edo Referees for the National Cooper Test Exercise. He said he was very hopeful that more referees from Edo State will pass the quarterly fitness test coming up soon.

"We are going to have a mock fitness test soon in Edo State Council and it will be a test of the first set of training programs. 

"With these training programs, the hurdles of passing national fitness test, will be taken away", the FIFA badged referee said.

NIGERIA TO TRACK DOWN THE ACTIVITIES OF TERRORISTS THROUGH SATELLITE

Plans are on by the Federal Government to deploy satellites to monitor the movement of suspected terrorists and their locations in the country.

Speaking to news men, the Director General of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Dr Seidu O. Mohammed said recently that there will be training sessions for the security agencies in the next few weeks. Said he, “We will also use communications satellites and global positioning systems to monitor every neighbourhood. We believe that is possible here and we are making effort to do that,” he said.

He said the training is for military and paramilitary, and that they will be trained on how to use NASRDA data, because, according to him, “every satellite launch has its own parameters and you need to understand them, before you operate them.”