The N493 million erosion control project awarded by the Federal Government in Tambuwal Local Government, Sokoto State, have been completed. The project was flagged-off on June 4, 2017 by Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Prof. Stephen Ocheni, who represented President Muhammadu Buhari. The project involved road improvement at Dogon Daji, erosion control works at Bashire and works on man-made gully erosion at Jabo community. Residents said the speed with which the work was completed was commendable, adding that it would help ease threats of erosion and flooding in the affected communities. Some of the residents, Malam Chika Malami, Abubakar…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
Denmark’s Parliament on Monday approved the construction of a 70-kilometre fence on the border with Germany as part of efforts to combat the threat of African swine fever often carried by wild boar. The fever is not dangerous to humans, but is almost always fatal in pigs yet there is no vaccine. “If African swine fever reaches Denmark, we calculate that exports worth 1.7 billion dollars would be immediately halted,’’ Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, Danish minister for environment and food, said in a statement. He was referring to exports of pigs and pork to countries outside the European Union that would be…
The cholera outbreak in Mubi North and Mubi South Local Government Areas of Adamawa has extended to Hong and Maiha local governments. A statement from the Information Officer of Adamawa Ministry of Health, Mohammed Abubakar, said two cases were recorded in each of the Local Government areas but there was no death. Abubakar said as at Sunday, the total number of cases recorded in Mubi North, Mubi South, Maiha and Hong stood at 985, with 16 deaths. The breakdown indicated that Mubi North had 427 cases, with 10 deaths, while Mubi South had 554 cases, with 6 deaths. Hong and…
By Marion Nestle The FDA has concluded its “consultation process” on Golden Rice. This, you may recall, is rice bioengineered to contain genes for beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) consulted with the FDA to make sure that the agency had no objection to this rice being used in human or animal food products. The FDA’s letter to IRRI concluding the consultation includes this statement: Although GR2E [“Golden”} rice is not intended for human or animal food uses in the United States, when present, it would be a producer’s or distributer’s responsibility to ensure that labeling of human and…
The former Chairman of the Lagos Island chapter of Nigerian Environmental Society, Mr John Ekoko on Monday called for increased research on biodegradable materials to replace plastic packaging materials. He made the call when he spoke on the 2018 World Environment Day in an interview in Lagos. The United Nations (UN) has fixed June 5 as the World Environment Day to draw global attention to the need to protect the environment and the theme for the 2018 celebration is “Beat the Plastic Pollution’’. Ekoko stressed that plastic materials were not biodegradable and they were, therefore, not environmental friendly. “The 2018…
An outbreak of swine flu at a hospital in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City has left 16 patients infected and another 80 quarantined, state media reported on Monday. The infections began on Friday at Tu Du, the largest obstetrics hospital in the southern city, when a patient due for surgery began showing signs of fever, the Vnexpress news site reported. Other people in the hospital, including patients and medical staff, began showing flu symptoms shortly afterward. By Saturday, 16 people had tested positive for swine flu. Swine flu is a respiratory disease caused by the virus H1N1, originally found in pigs,…
A new study showed that a drug approved for lymphoma and leukemia may also help treat the most common and lethal type of brain tumor. The findings, published in the latest journal Science Translational Science, offer hope that the drug called ibrutinib may one day be used in patients with glioblastoma and improve its poor survival rates. Bao Shigang, an investigator at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, said that ibrutinib slowed brain tumor growth in mice and extended survival more than 10 times the rate of the current standard-of-care chemotherapy drug Temozolomide. Shigang’s team found that ibrutinib could inhibit glioma…
The African Development Bank (AfDB), says there is the need to take action against plastic pollution in Africa. The bank made the call in a statement signed by its Communication Officer, Climate Change and Green Growth Department, Mrs Sonia Borrini on Sunday in Abuja. The call come on the heels of the 2018 World Environment Day slated for June 5, with the theme: “Beat Plastic Pollution’’. According to the bank, it aims to celebrate the World Environment Day (WED) 2018, and the World Ocean Day (WOD) by raising awareness of its own staff as well as engage key partners. “Every…
The Adamawa Commissioner for Health, Dr Fatima Atiku says the fatality rate of recent Cholera outbreak in Mubi North and Mubi South local government areas of the state, has dropped from 17 to 1.8 per cent. Disclosing this on Saturday in Yola while updating newsmen on the epidemic, she said that the success was recorded because of collaboration with partners like WHO, UNICEF, MSF and Solitaire. “As a result of this collaborative efforts, the case fatality ratio of the outbreak, which was 17 per cent as at 12th May, was drastically reduced to 1.8 per cent as at 1st June. The total…
Plant scientists have taken the crucial last steps in a 60-year quest to unravel the complex chemistry of Madagascar periwinkle in a breakthrough that opens up the potential for rapid synthesis of cancer-fighting compounds. The team in the laboratory of Professor Sarah O’Connor at the John Innes Centre have, after 15 years of research, located the last missing genes in the genome of the periwinkle that are devoted to building the chemical vinblastine. This valuable natural product has been used as an anti-cancer drug since it was discovered in the 1950s by a Canadian research team. A potent inhibitor of…