Two Roadshows were held recently in Abuja and Lagos (on the 9th September and 11th September respectively), courtesy of the West Africa Forum for Clean Energy Financing (WAFCEF) to introduce project developers, prospective applicants and network members to the second cycle of clean energy financing projects. The forum was tagged “WAFCEF 2014”.
The Roadshows provided opportunities for participants and potential investors to understand the benefits of participation and how to be involved in the application process. The programmes were primarily targeted to clean energy financing project developers and entrepreneurs. The objectives were to advance the growth of clean energy development in Nigeria as well as encourage the participants to effectively participate in the West Africa Forum that will be launched in the next few weeks with Nigeria as one of the key markets for new projects.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Ambassador Dr. Godswill Igali, gave a keynote address. Igali was represented by A. Adebisi, a Director in the Ministry. The opening remarks were delivered by the Head of USAID Nigeria who was represented by Steven E. Henddrix, Supervisory Programme Officer. Present also were partners from various organisations including ECREE, AFDB / DWG. They all commended and associated with the Roadshows and recommended the initiative to participants.
The Roadshows featured the presentation of papers from Segun Adaju, Chief of Party for Winrock International in Nigeria who are the Managers of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, Project (REEP); Albert Boateng, CTIPFAN Regional Co-ordinator West Africa; Bobby Namiti, CTIPFAN Regional Co-ordinator, East Africa; and Mr. Olowo, a representative of ECOBANK.
The presentations at the Roadshows included introduction to CTIPFAN WAFCEF2, Key issues to cover in successful Proposal, Bankers Perspective, Developers Experience and Mentor’s Perspective.
Participants were worked through Business Plan Development, Investment and Project Analysis, Cash flow and Presentation of the Documents.
The participants had opportunity during questions and answers sessions which was participatory and enriching to contribute to the programmes.
The events, organised by CTIPFAN and REEP on behalf of WAFCEF, ended with the West Africa Coordinator, Albert Boateng, commending the high level of participation and the effort of Winrock International and the Network Partner, CISME Consulting, for making the events successful.
It has been two months the Nigerian government and the World Health Organisation shut down First Consultant Hospital to decontaminate it from Ebola Virus after the first imported case by a Liberian /American died in the hospital on July 25.
The Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola visited the hospital on Friday and promised the state will replace equipment the hospital lost in the process of decontamination.
I also spoke to one f the survivours Adaora Igodoh , a medical doctor who had just started working with the hospital on july 1st this year when sh got infected by Patrick Sawyer.
A three-day curfew has begun in Sierra Leone to enable health workers to find and isolate cases of Ebola, in order to halt the spread of the disease.
Many people have been reluctant to seek medical treatment for Ebola, fearing that diagnosis might mean death as there is no proven cure.
A team of 30,000 people is going house-to-house to find those infected and distribute soap.
But critics say the lockdown will damage public trust in doctors.
Meanwhile in neighbouring Guinea, the bodies of eight missing health workers and journalists involved in the Ebola campaign have been found.
A government spokesman said some of the bodies had been recovered from a septic tank in the village of Wome. The team had been attacked by villagers on Tuesday.
US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power: ”It is going to spread to other countries… if we do not dramatically scale up our efforts”
Correspondents say many villagers are suspicious of official attempts to combat the disease and the incident illustrates the difficulties health workers face.
Sierra Leone is one of the countries worst hit by West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, with more than 550 victims among the 2,600 deaths so far recorded.
WHO officials say that under the curfew, Sierra Leone’s six million citizens cannot leave their homes between 07:00 and 19:00 each day.
After dark, they can go outdoors but cannot leave their area, and shops will remain shut. Earlier reports had suggested that residents would have to stay indoors for the entire lockdown.
‘Lives at stake’
During the curfew, 30,000 volunteers will look for people infected with Ebola, or bodies, which are especially contagious.
They will hand out bars of soap and information on preventing infection.
Officials say the teams will not enter people’s homes but will call emergency services to deal with patients or bodies.
On Thursday, President Ernest Bai Koroma said: “Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.”
He urged citizens to avoid touching each other, visiting the sick or avoid attending funerals.
Freetown resident Christiana Thomas told the BBC: “People are afraid of going to the hospital because everyone who goes there is tested for Ebola.”
The Chinese central government on Friday approved a plan that maps out major climate change goals to be met by 2020.
This was contained in a statement released on the website of the country’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
The State Council, China’s cabinet, gave a green light to the plan which was proposed by the NDRC, the country’s economic planner.
China has pledged to reduce its carbon emission intensity, namely emissions per unit of GDP, by 40 per cent to 45 per cent by 2020 from the 2005 level.
It will also aim to bring the proportion of non-fossil fuels to about 15 per cent of its total primary energy consumption.
According to the statement, other targets include increasing forest coverage by 40 million hectares within the next five years.
It also said that the government would speed up efforts to establish a carbon emission permit market, under the plan, which also calls for deepened international cooperation.
The State Council said local governments and departments at all levels should recognise the significance and urgency in dealing with climate change and give higher priority to action on the issue.
China’s release of the action plan came just before a climate summit is to be held at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
At least 2,622 people have died in the worst outbreak of Ebola virus in history, which has so far infected at least 5,335 people in West Africa, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.
In an update on the epidemic, which is raging through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and has spread into Nigeria and Senegal, the WHO said there were no signs yet of it slowing.
“The upward epidemic trend continues in the three countries that have widespread and intense transmission – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone,” the United Nations health agency said.
It added that a surge in Ebola in Liberia is being driven primarily by a continued increase in the number of cases reported in the capital, Monrovia.
Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno on Thursday expressed optimism that the Nigerian military will soon end the Boko Haram insurgency in the country.
Shettima made the statement at the launching of the new 64 page e-passport in Maiduguri.
He said that the recent victory by the military in different encounters with the insurgents had brought back hope of ending the crisis soon.
“The military has brought back hope to the minds of the people with its renewed efforts in fighting the insurgents.
“With the recent victory, I belief that peace will soon be the restored and normalcy will return,’’ he said.
He commended the Federal Government for introducing the new passport, saying its introduction had placed the country among the best countries of the world.
“I think the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) deserve kudos for introducing the passport.
“This has made us proud as Nigerians, because the passport conformed to the best practices in the world,” Shettima said.
The governor also commiserated with the NIS for losing some of its men to insurgency in the state.
“The numerous sacrifices of your men in restoring peace in the state will not go unnoticed.
“For those who lost their lives accept our condolence,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the Borno NIS Comptroller, Alhaji Madu Musa said that the launching of new passport was part of government’s effort to prevent fraud in the issuance of passport.
He said the new passport was launched by President Goodluck Jonathan on July 30 in Abuja.
“The new passport is gender friendly; it takes care of low income earners and the aged.
“It also accommodates frequent travelers and forestalls identity theft,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 64-page e-passport cost N20, 000, the 32-page cost N15,000 while the 32-page for 60 and above and below 18 years cost N8,750. (NAN)
The current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has heightened the quest for a deeper understanding of the molecular biology of the virus, which scientists say could be critical in the development of vaccines or antiviral drugs to treat or prevent hemorrhagic fever caused by Ebola.
Ebola virus
A team at the University of Virginia (UVA), USA, led by Dr Dan Engel, a virologist, and Dr Zygmunt Derewenda, a structural biologist, has obtained the crystal structure of a key protein involved in Ebola virus replication, in the nucleoprotein (NP) of the Zaire strain of Ebola virus.
The team explained that their structure reveals a novel tertiary fold that is expected to lead to insights into how the viral nucleocapsid is assembled in infected cells. The team said the structure could also provide a basis for the design of drugs to halt infection in humans, saying it is unique in the RNA virus world.
Derewenda said, “It is not found in viruses that cause influenza, rabies or other diseases. It distantly resembles the β-grasp protein motif found in ubiquitin, most likely the result of convergent evolution.”
Like many other related viruses, Ebola virus contains a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA that encodes seven different proteins, one of which is known as the nucleoprotein (NP) for its ability to interact with the viral RNA genome. It is the most abundant viral protein found in infected cells and also inside the viral nucleocapsid. While five of the seven viral proteins have succumbed to structural characterization by X-ray crystallography, NP so far has resisted such attempts, although analogous proteins from other viruses have had their structures analysed.
The UVA team produced the Ebola protein using an engineered form of Escherichia coli bacteria as a protein factory. This allowed them to identify the boundaries of two globular domains and to crystallize the unique C-terminal domain spanning amino-acid residues 641 to 739. The study revealed a molecular architecture unseen so far among known proteins, the team says. There is existing evidence that the newly characterized domain is involved in transcription and the self-assembly of the viral nucleocapsid. As such, the results obtained by the UVA team will be useful in deciphering precisely how these various functions are accomplished by the virus; such a detailed description offers up a potential target for the design of anti-viral drugs.
The wait for the anticipated medicine for the deadly Ebola Virus Disease may be over in November, as a medicine for its treatment may be unveiled then.
Although, the medicine, according Gamhewage, would be used in treating health workers, it adds to the positives being recorded in the battle to curb the current Ebola outbreak.
She said this is the outcome of not less than 11 candidate drugs being tested for protection against the virus, some of which are serum based.
Meanwhile, the Lagos EOC incident manager has said that “as at September 18,” there should be only one person left to follow up on, out of the 366 primary and contacts of the late Liberian that were initially under surveillance in Lagos State.
He also emphasised during the interview that there is no Ebola in the Nigerian community, explaining that everybody that has had the disease stemmed from one person, the Liberian.
Nonetheless, outcomes of the recent Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Nigeria and other countries have shown that about 50 per cent of those infected have survived to the delight of the World Health Orgnaisation (WHO), other agencies and experts that have been working to tame the disease since it broke out in West Africa this year.
Information from the WHO have disclosed that the total number of probable, confirmed and suspected cases in the current outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa was 4366, with 2218 deaths, as at September 7, indicating an over 50 per cent survival rate in the affected countries.
This is happening at a time scientists have obtained further insights about a key protein involved in the Ebola virus replication, a further boost to the body of knowledge on the virus and the way it acts.
As at Tuesday last week, no new case of Ebola was recorded in Nigeria, as the total number of confirmed cases remained 19 (15 in Lagos and 4 in Port Harcourt). Twelve out of all confirmed cases have so far survived, indicating an over 63 per cent survival rate in the country.
WHO puts the total survival rate across all affected countries in the recent outbreaks at over 47 per cent, a significant reduction from the over 90 per cent death rate reported among infected persons in previous outbreaks.
WHO Risk Communication expert, Dr. Gaya Gamhewage, who spoke about the global delight on the positive outcomes in the latest interventions, said, “In the past emphasis was on the fact that 90 per cent of those infected die. The story has, however changed, as about 50 per cent of those infected are surviving.”
Gamhewage, who was speaking to Nigerian journalists during a workshop on Ebola Communication held in Lagos, said this is happening even in countries whose health systems are far weaker than Nigeria’s.
The incident manager of the Lagos Ebola Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), Dr. Kayode Oguntimehin, also shares similar optimism.
Speaking in an interview, Oguntimehin said, “What we have proven is that Ebola is not a death sentence. Majority of those who have died are those who were in a very bad state. Likewise, majority of those who have been discharged are people we caught very early.”
Poor access to Reproductive Health has emerged as a major reason youths in Nigeria are unable to develop intellectually.
The issue, which was highlighted in the pilot of the Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS) Youth Development Project on Social/Youth Development, and Reproductive Health, topped a myriad of others ranging from lack of access to good education to disconnection from main stream development agenda.
Coordinator of the NAS programme, Prof. Akinyinka Omigbodun, who spoke on some of these limitations faced by the youths in Nigeria said, despite making up 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population, they are faced with “poor or non-existent access to functional education, high unemployment rates, exposure to conflicts, vulnerability to adverse sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including gender-based sexual violence,” stating also that 60 per cent of them live below the poverty line.
Presenting further outcomes of the pilots held in Ekiti and Nasarawa states of Nigeria, Omigbodun said an unimaginably high number of Nigerian youths are faced with the worst consequences of early sexual exposure, poor teaching and learning environments among others.
This, he said, is further exacerbated by poor information flow, adding that “The main sources of information for youths on both puberty (53 per cent) and reproductive health (56 per cent) were school teachers,” despite that they preferred such were from family members, health workers and the media in that order of preference.
The situation, according to the NAS finding, is made dire by poor science teacher to science student ratio, which currently stands at 1:8 in Nigeria.
From left: Dr. Oladoyin Odubanjo, Executive Secretary, Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS); Professor Oyewale Tomori, President, NAS; Professor Alfred Adegoke, keynote speaker; Professor Akinyinka Omigbodun a Fellow of NAS; Professor Temitayo Shokunbi, Academic Secretary, Biological Sciences, NAS; and Professor Domingo Okorie, Academic Secretary, Physical Sciences, NAS, at a Media Roundtable for the NAS-Youth Development and Reproductive Health Programme, in Lagos on Wednesday, 10th of September, 2014
Professor Alfred Adegoke of the Faculty of Education, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, who stressed the link between the poor youths development in Nigeria and Reproductive Health, said the events in Nigeria is not isolated, as premarital sex is globally, becoming more widespread.
He said many who become sexually active at an early age do not know how to protect themselves during sexual activity, adding, “One third of the sexually transmitted infections (STIs) contracted each year globally are among women and men younger than 25 years of age.”
Highlighting the critical indicators of the Reproductive and Sexual Health of young people as presented in National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS, 2008), he said, “The median age at first intercourse was 17.7 for women and 20.6 for men.”
According to Adegoke, this also increases the risk of new HIV infections, as it has also been found that only seven per cent of young men and women in Nigeria had been tested for HIV and received their results within the 12 months before the survey.
On how to get the country back on track, the programme stated the need for increased awareness and enlightenment on risky sexual behaviour and its effects through school health programmes. It also urged increased awareness on effects of substance abuse, use of peer educators in schools, as well as creation of opportunities to encourage parental and religious involvement in addressing and educating youths on reproductive health matters.
The battle to contain the human to human transmission of Ebola virus in Nigeria continues, especially through the neighbouring countries.
But is a fresh outbreak of the disease possible through animal sources?
I traveled to Osun State ,South Western Nigeria and it was business as usual. Locals preparing bush meat with their bare hands and eating bush meat to prove to our cameras that they are free of Ebola virus.
It was interesting to hear what the traveling customers who pull over to buy had to say to support of bush meat consumption irrespective of the recent alert to stop pending when Ebola outbreak ease off.
The Roadshows provided opportunities for participants and potential investors to understand the benefits of participation and how to be involved in the application process. The programmes were primarily targeted to clean energy financing project developers and entrepreneurs. The objectives were to advance the growth of clean energy development in Nigeria as well as encourage the participants to effectively participate in the West Africa Forum that will be launched in the next few weeks with Nigeria as one of the key markets for new projects.
