Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic across Africa : current status of vaccinations and implications for the future

The introduction of effective vaccines in December 2020 marked a significant step forward in the global response to COVID-19. Given concerns with access, acceptability, and hesitancy across Africa, there is a need to describe the current status of vaccine uptake in the continent. An exploratory study was undertaken to investigate these aspects, current challenges, and lessons learnt across Africa to provide future direction. Senior personnel across 14 African countries completed a self-administered questionnaire, with a descriptive analysis of the data. Vaccine roll-out commenced in March 2021 in most countries. COVID-19 vaccination coverage varied from low in Cameroon and Tanzania and up to 39.85% full coverage in Botswana at the end of 2021; that is, all doses advocated by initial protocols versus the total population, with rates increasing to 58.4% in Botswana by the end of June 2022. The greatest increase in people being fully vaccinated was observed in Uganda (20.4% increase), Botswana (18.5% increase), and Zambia (17.9% increase). Most vaccines were obtained through WHO-COVAX agreements. Initially, vaccination was prioritised for healthcare workers (HCWs), the elderly, adults with co-morbidities, and other at-risk groups, with countries now commencing vaccination among children and administering booster doses. Challenges included irregular supply and considerable hesitancy arising from misinformation fuelled by social media activities. Overall, there was fair to reasonable access to vaccination across countries, enhanced by government initiatives. Vaccine hesitancy must be addressed with context-specific interventions, including proactive programmes among HCWs, medical journalists, and the public

Prescription Patterns and Drug Use Indicators in a Nigerian Urban Tertiary Health Care Facility

Rationale use of drugs increases the quality of health care, ensures cost effectiveness in health care delivery and better therapeutic outcomes. It however remains a problem in most parts of the world especially in the developing nations. This study was carried out to describe the pattern of drug utilization in a Nigerian Urban Tertiary Health Care Facility and evaluate the quality of prescriptions. This was a cross sectional study of all prescriptions received at the Pharmacy Department of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria for the month of November, 2013. All prescriptions were analyzed for some standard indices of rationale prescription. Descriptive Statistics were done using SPSS version 17.0. There were 7,516 encounters with a total of 14,794 drugs prescribed. The mean number of drugs per encounter was 2.3+1.4 drugs. Practically all classes of drugs were represented with Antibiotics being the most prescribed (26.2%), followed by Analgesics (19.4%) and Antihypertensive drugs (10.4%) respectively. Only 47.8% drugs were prescribed using generic name while there were 25% encounters with injections. The percentage prescription from the Essential Medicines Lists of the hospital was 27.9%. There were deficiencies in the quality of drug prescriptions studied as well as indices of irrational use of medicines among the prescribers. Appropriate measures needs be identified and implemented to improve on the use of medicine

A multicentre point prevalence study of antibiotics utilization in hospitalized patients in an urban secondary and a tertiary healthcare facilities in Nigeria : findings and implications

Objectives: The understanding of antimicrobial utilization patterns is pertinent to successful implementation of the National Action Plans on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). There is, however, limited information on antibiotics utilization in Nigeria. This study was undertaken to build on existing information and provide direction for appropriate interventions including Antibiotics Stewardship Programs (ASP). Method: A Point Prevalence Study (PPS) was conducted in two public urban health facilities in Lagos, Nigeria using a design adapted from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and Global-PPS surveys. Results: The prevalence of antibiotics use was 80.6% administered mostly parenterally (83.1% of total prescriptions) with concerns with extended surgical antibiotics prophylaxis. The mostly used antibiotics in the secondary hospital were parenteral metronidazole (32.4%), ceftriaxone (27.5%), and amoxicillin + clavulanate (8.2%) while the mostly used in the tertiary hospital were ceftriaxone (25.3%), parenteral metronidazole (19.1%), and amoxicillin + clavulanate (9.3%). There was an appreciable lack of specific functional capacities, policies, and processes to promote appropriate antimicrobial use in both hospitals. Conclusions: There is high rate of antibiotics utilization in these facilities with lack of institutional frameworks and processes for ensuring appropriate antibiotic use. The study provides the information needed to improve future antimicrobial use in hospitals and reduce AMR