The COVID-19 pandemic and health workforce brain drain in Nigeria

Over the years, the Nigerian healthcare workforce, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists have always been known to emigrate to developed countries to practice. However, the recent dramatic increase in this trend is worrisome. There has been a mass emigration of Nigerian healthcare workers to developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the push factors have been found to include the inadequate provision of personal protective equipment, low monthly hazard allowance, and inconsistent payment of COVID-19 inducement allowance on top of worsening insecurity, the pull factors are higher salaries as well as a safe and healthy working environment. We also discuss how healthcare workers can be retained in Nigeria through increment in remunerations and prompt payment of allowances, and how the brain drain can be turned into a brain gain via the use of electronic data collection tools for Nigerian health workers abroad, implementation of the Bhagwati’s tax system, and establishment of a global skill partnership with developed countries

Inaccessibility and low maintenance of medical data archive in low-middle income countries: Mystery behind public health statistics and measures

Africa bears the largest burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases globally, yet it contributes only about 1 % of global research output, partly because of inaccessibility and low maintenance of medical data. Data is widely recognized as a crucial tool for improvement of population health. Despite the introduction of electronic health data systems in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) to improve data quality, some LMICs still lack an efficient system to collect and archive data. This study aims to examine the underlying causes of data archive inaccessibility and poor maintenance in LMICS, and to highlight sustainable mitigation measures. Method Authors conducted a comprehensive search on PubMed, Google scholar, organization websites using the search string “data archive” or “medical data” or “public health statistics” AND “challenges” AND “maintenance” AND “Low Middle Income Countries” or “LMIC”. to Identify relevant studies and reports to be included in our review. All articles related data archive in low and middle income countries were considered without restrictions due to scarcity of data. Result Medical data archives in LMICs face challenges impacting data quality. Insufficient training, organizational constraints, and limited infrastructure hinder archive maintenance. To improve, support for public datasets, digital literacy, and technology infrastructure is needed. Standardization, cloud solutions, and advanced technologies can enhance data management, while capacity building and training programs are crucial. Conclusion The creation and maintenance of data archives to facilitate the storage of retrospective datasets is critical to create reliable and consistent data to better equip the development of resilient health systems and surveillance of diseases in LMICs

Fake COVID-19 vaccinations in Africa

Deliveries of vaccine supplies by the COVAX programme under the WHO commenced in February 2021.1 COVAX has proposed to distribute 520 million doses to Africa by the end of 2021.1 On 28 March 2021, African Union member states endorsed purchasing 220 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson single shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. However, priority was given to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the central-most pooled procurement due to being a single-shot vaccine, being cheap and easy to administer, having good storage conditions and production of doses being within Africa, with fill–finish activities taking place in South Africa

Concern over Nipah virus cases amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in India

Nipah virus, a member of the paramyxoviridae family, is classified as a“virus of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO).1,2 Nipahvirus is usually reported in Southeast Asia due to the geographicalprevalence of its natural host, thePteropusfruit bat.1,3It is a zoonoticinfection transmitted by direct contact with infected animals or viabodily secretions such as bat blood, saliva, and urine. The virus alsodemonstrates human–human transmission.4Nipah virus infectiongenerally affects the central nervous system in human hosts, causinginflammation of brain parenchyma (encephalitis) and can also causerespiratory symptoms.3Initial symptoms include fever, headache, later progressing to drowsiness, altered mental status, coma, andeven death.5As reported by Kenmoe et al. Nipah virus encephalitishas a pooled case fatality rate of 61%.6The current managementincludes symptomatic treatment due to lack of specific pharmaco-logical treatment for Nipah virus