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

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The Level of Compliance of Food Handlers with National Regulations on Food Hygiene and Safety Practices: A Case of Selected Fast Food Outlets in Thohoyandou, South Africa

Abstract Food safety is becoming a key public health priority because a large number of people consume their meals outside their homes. As a result, they are exposed to food borne illnesses that originate from food stalls, restaurants and other food outlets. Hence the study focused on level of compliance of food handlers with national regulations on food hygiene and safety practices. The method used to collect data was participant observational checklist where the researcher had to go round with the workers during their daily chores. Simple random sampling was used to select 122 food handlers as participants in the study. Fast food outlets were also evaluated according to codified regulations and sixty food premises were observed for compliance using a checklist and compared with standards and the requirements prescribed by in Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act of 1972, regulation Data analysis involved descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) and analysis was made based on the standards and the requirements prescribed by Regulation R962 of November 2012. The findings showed that food handlers observed personal hygiene by wearing clean uniforms, covering their heads with hair nets, and washed their hands, indicating that food handlers maintained accepted standards in terms of personal hygiene regulations

Integration of mid-infrared spectroscopy and geostatistics in the assessment of soil spatial variability at landscape level

Knowledge of soil spatial variability is important in natural resource management, interpolation and soil sampling design, but requires a considerable amount of geo-referenced data. In this study, mid-infrared spectroscopy in combination with spatial analyses tools is being proposed to facilitate landscape evaluation and monitoring. Mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) and geostatistics were integrated for evaluating soil spatial structures of three land settlement schemes in Zimbabwe (i.e. communal area, old resettlement and new resettlement; on loamy-sand, sandy-loam and clay soils, respectively). A nested non-aligned design with hierarchical grids of 750, 150 and 30 m resulted in 432 sampling points across all three villages (730–1360 ha). At each point, a composite topsoil sample was taken and analyzed by MIRS. Conventional laboratory analyses on 25–38% of the samples were used for the prediction of concentration values on the remaining samples through the application of MIRS–partial least squares regression models. These models were successful (R2 ? 0.89) for sand, clay, pH, total C and N, exchangeable Ca, Mg and effective CEC; but not for silt, available P and exchangeable K and Al (R2 ? 0.82). Minimum sample sizes required to accurately estimate the mean of each soil property in each village were calculated. With regard to locations, fewer samples were needed in the new resettlement area than in the other two areas (e.g. 66 versus 133–473 samples for estimating soil C at 10% error, respectively); regarding parameters, less samples were needed for estimating pH and sand (i.e. 3–52 versus 27–504 samples for the remaining properties, at same error margin). Spatial analyses of soil properties in each village were assessed by constructing standardized isotropic semivariograms, which were usually well described by spherical models. Spatial autocorrelation of most variables was displayed over ranges of 250–695 m. Nugget-to-sill ratios showed that, in general, spatial dependence of soil properties was: new resettlement > old resettlement > communal area; which was potentially attributed to both intrinsic (e.g. texture) and extrinsic (e.g. management) factors. As a new approach, geostatistical analysis was performed using MIRS data directly, after principal component analyses, where the first three components explained 70% of the overall variability. Semivariograms based on these components showed that spatial dependence per village was similar to overall dependence identified from individual soil properties in each area. In fact, the first component (explaining 49% of variation) related well with all soil properties of reference samples (absolute correlation values of 0.55–0.96). This showed that MIRS data could be directly linked to geostatistics for a broad and quick evaluation of soil spatial variability. It is concluded that integrating MIRS with geostatistical analyses is a cost-effective promising approach, i.e. for soil fertility and carbon sequestration assessments, mapping and monitoring at landscape level

The role of ancient human settlements in creating nutrient hotspots in a savanna ecosystem, central Zimbabwe

Ancient human settlements play an important role in creating heterogeneous African savanna ecosystems through forming nutrient hotspots with increased biodiversity and improved forage quality. However, plant community development and herbivore utilization of these sites after abandonment remain poorly understood. We compared plant and soil parameters in ancient human settlements with off-sites locations. In addition, we set camera traps in ancient settlements and surrounding vegetation to determine their use by herbivores. Grass basal cover, height, biomass and species diversity in ancient settlements had recovered to similar levels with the surrounding landscape. Ancient settlements had small trees (in terms of height and canopy volume), lower tree density and lower species diversity than the surrounding landscape. Soil phosphorus and calcium were higher in ancient settlements than surrounding landscape, while pH, nitrogen, potassium, magnesium and sodium were similar between the two sites. Impala and greater kudu camera sightings were higher in ancient settlements than surrounding vegetation, while warthogs showed no preferential foraging between ancient settlements and surrounding vegetation. We conclude that ancient settlements created functional heterogeneity through altering the structure of savanna vegetation influencing foraging patterns of herbivores such as impala