Tag Archives: Requires

Part-time NASS Requires Constitutional Amendment- Osinbajo

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As more Nigerians continue calls for membership of the National Assembly-the Senate and House of Representative- to be made part-time due to the huge cost of running the two chambers, the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has said such move would require a constitutional amendment.

The Vice President, who was responding to comments from members during the 90th Anniversary of the Yoruba Tennis Club in Lagos yesterday, stressed that such change would “go through the National Assembly”, thereby making it the prerogative of the lawmakers to either adopt it or not.

On the call for the autonomy of Federal Universities, Osinbajo said that would only be feasible if the institutions could finance themselves in all aspects.“ But as long as the government continues doing that, attainment of complete autonomy would be difficult,” he said.

Earlier, the Vice President, who was the guest speaker at the event, delivered a lecture titled: Revitalizing the Nigerian Economy: The Challenges and the Opportunities, in which he stated: “We have been talking about diversification for about 40 years, but we have not been able to achieve this due to lack of discipline,” stressing that the call only intensifies whenever there is crises in the oil sector.

Osinbajo who said that Nigeria is facing the “most challenging period” economically, which has plunged the country into a recession, said the government was doing its best to revive the economy with one of the ways being “Social Housing Initiative” which would be launched by the end of the year.

He stressed that the idea was not just for job creation, but to also create an avenue where young Nigerians could own houses.

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http://guardian.ng/news/part-time-nass-requires-constitutional-amendment-says-osinbajo/

Nigeria Requires 1.7m Units Of Donated Blood Annually– Hematologist

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A hematologist, Dr Abdul-Aziz Hassan, on Tuesday said that Nigeria needed about 1.7 million units of donated blood per annum.

Hassan, the Head of Hematology and Blood Transfusion Department, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, made the assertion at a programme to commemorate the World Blood Donor Day in Zaria.

The consultant hematologist, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the programme, said 100 million units of blood are donated across the world annually.

According to him, more than 60 per cent of this figure is, however, collected in the developed countries.

“As we talk now, there are about 100 million units of blood that are being donated annually all over the world.

` Unfortunately, more than 60 per cent of that is being collected in the Western World.

“With the population of over 170 million people in Nigeria, we need at least 1.7 million units annually, but we only collect about 400,000 to 500,000 units per annum.

` This is very unfortunate,” he said.

According to Hassan, most of the blood donated in Nigeria is by family replacement donor.

“ This simply means donation by a person whose relative is in the hospital and requires blood transfusion.

“So you cannot call that one voluntary donation because he or she is donating to fulfil the requirement of his or her relations or parents,” he said.

Hassan, however, described blood donors as very important segment of the society hence the need for the celebration to appreciate their gigantic effort at saving lives.

Credit: Leadership

WHO Requires $56m To Implement Zika Virus Strategy

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) requires 56 million dollars to implement the recently launched global strategy to guide the international response to the spread of the Zika virus.

Natela Menabde, Executive Director of the WHO Office in New York, disclosed this on Wednesday to the UN member states during a briefing to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

She said under the strategy 25 million dollars would fund the joint response of WHO, the Regional Office for the Americas (AMRO) and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and 31 million dollars would fund the work of key partners.

She explained that upon Zika virus outbreak, WHO launched a global strategy to guide the international response to the spread of the virus and the neonatal malformations and neurological conditions associated with it.

Menabde said the strategy, also known as the “Strategic Response Framework and Joint Operations Plan’’, focused on mobilising and coordinating partners, experts and resources to help countries enhance surveillance of the Zika virus and disorders that could be linked to it.

She said it was also aimed at improving vector control, effectively communicate risks, guidance and protection measures, provide medical care to those affected and fast-track research and development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

Menabde said in the in the interim, WHO had tapped a recently established emergency contingency fund to finance its initial operations.

She said under the new emergency programme, the global health agency had activated an “Incident Management System’’ to oversee the global response and leverage expertise from across the organisation to address the crisis.

“WHO is tapping a recently established emergency contingency fund to finance its initial operations.

Menabde said currently 34 countries had reported the Zika virus outbreak, mostly in the Americas and Caribbean, and seven reported an increase in cases of microcephaly.

She said Brazil had registered more than 4,700 suspected cases of microcephaly and a quarter was only studied for the moment.

She said before the outbreak of the virus, the average number of microcephaly every year was just 163 cases.

Credit: Leadership