Saturday, 16 January 2016
Wednesday, 13 January 2016
Tuesday, 12 January 2016
GOVERNOR WIKE'S FORMER SPECIAL ADVISER ON MEDIA AND PUBLICITY DEFECTS TO APC.
GOV. WIKE'S EX AIDE, OPUNABO INKO-TARIAH, DUMPS PDP FOR APC
PORT HARCOURT: Mr. Opunabo Inko-Tariah, the erstwhile Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Governor Nyesom Wike has defected to the All Progressives Congress
UPDATE!: ALL ABOUT LASSA FEVER
LASSA FEVER
DESCRIPTION.
Lassa fever is an extremely virulent, often fatal, Old-World, viral hemorrhagic illness. Lassa fever, an arenavirus, is an enveloped, single-stranded, bisegmented RNA virus. As with other arenaviruses, Lassa virus does not have a conventional negative-strand coding arrangement.
Lassa fever occurs more often in the dry season, rather than in the rainy season. It is the most commonly "exported" hemorrhagic fever; its victims carry the disease from Africa to the United States, to the United Kingdom, tp the Netherlands, Israel, and Japan.
Lassa fever is named after the town (in the Yedseram River valley) in which the first cases were isolated in 1969, during a nosocomial outbreak at a local hospital. (A clinical description of Lassa fever was published in Sierra Leone over a decade earlier, but received little or no attention.)
LOCATION.
Parts of West Africa, including Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Liberia. However, sporadic Lassa infections may have also occurred in Senegal and Mali. One host genus has been identified as spreading at least one Lassalike virus in central Africa.
VECTOR.:
The rat species Mastomys, in particular, M. natalensis is a consistent host reservoir for the Lassa virus due to the congenital neonatal infection, which results in rats with long-lasting and/or lifelong infection.
Because of the mechanism of infection, there is no break in the natural chain from virus to host species. The rats themselves might show no symptoms of the disease, but they shed the virus freely in urine and droppings, and secrete the virus in their saliva.
Because certain varieties of Mastomys often live in human homes, the virus is easily transmitted to humans. Transmission occurs via direct contact with rat urine, feces, and saliva; via contact with excretion- or secretion-infected materials; or via ingestion of excretion-contaminated food. Victims can also become infected via skin breaks, and via mucous membranes from aerosol transmission from dust-borne particles. In some areas, the rodents are used as a food source, thus providing additional exposure to the infected rat blood, as well as allowing ingestion of potentially contaminated meat. Laboratory workers become infected usually from contact with rodent saliva.
Unlike other arenaviruses, Lassa virus can be fairly easily transmitted from human to human. Humans can contract the disease from other humans via aerosol transmission (coughing), or from direct contact with infected human blood, urine, or semen. Lassa virus has been isolated from semen 6 weeks after acute illness; the virus can be transmitted to sexual partners by convalescent men.
MECHANISM.:
The virus enters the human body through the bloodstream, lymph vessels, respiratory tract, and/or digestive tract. It then multiplies in cells of the reticuloendothelial system. Virus replication in the reticuloendothelial cells causes capillary lesions. These capillary lesions lead to erythrocyte and platelet loss, with mild to moderate thrombocytopenia and a tendency toward bleeding. Capillary lesions also cause increased vascular permeability and hemorrhage in various organs, such as the stomach, small intestine, kidneys, lungs, and brain.
INCUBATION PERIOD:
Usually about 10 days. Can range from 1-24 days. Most patients display symptoms for 4 to 5 days before seeking hospital treatment.
SYMPTOMS.
Gradual onset of fever and malaise. Increased fever (which can last 2-3 weeks) and myalgia, with severe prostration, accompanied by involvement of specific organs and serosa. Patients frequently present with pain behind the sternum and with coughing.
Additional common symptoms include: abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, or constipation; also: conjunctivitis, pharyngitis (inflammation of mucous membranes and the underlying parts of the pharynx), increased vascular permeability (such as pleural effusions), and proteinuria (protein in the urine). About 10-30% of patients present with facial and neck swelling. Approximately 2/3 of patients present with sore throat, usually accompanied by objective inflammatory or exudative (oozing) pharyngitis. Some patients experience adult respiratory distress syndrome. Skin rashes and jaundice are rare.
Some patients experience bleeding from the gums. In addition, capillary lesions cause hemorrhaging in the stomach, small intestine, kidneys, lungs, and brain. Less than 1/3 of patients present with bleeding; however, bleeding is a predictor of a significantly higher risk of death. In severe cases of Lassa fever, shock and vascular collapse occur, followed by death. Research suggests that the shock results from platelet and endothelial dysfunction, which cause hemorrhage and allow fluid to leak into the intravascular system.
Patients who will survive begin to defervesce 2-3 weeks after onset of the disease. In contrast, patients who are at the greatest risk of dying usually develop shock, clouded mental status, agitation, rales, pleural effusion, and sometimesgrand mal seizures. The four symptoms associated with a 2.5-fold or higher risk of mortality are: vomiting, sore throat, tachypnea (rapid breathing), or bleeding.
During convalescence, although the virus may no longer be found in the blood, pericarditis can occur, especially in males. The following conditions may also occur during convalescence: aseptic meningitis, encephalitis, global encephalopathy with seizures, cerebellar ataxia (uncommon), and deafness (common). Temporary or permanent deafness in one or both ears occurs in 29% of Lassa fever patients.
Experiments on guinea pigs have shown that Lassa virus can manifest differently, with significantly varying symptoms. It is suspected that subtle genetic changes in tissue-specific variants of the disease create the differences in disease manifestation.
DIAGNOSIS.:
Lassa virus can be diagnosed in three ways:
1. Isolating the virus from blood, urine, or throat washings.
2. Demonstrating the presence of immunoglobuline M (IgM) antibody to Lassa virus.
3. Showing a fourfold rise in titer of IgG antibody between acute- and convalescent-phase serum.
The virus can be isolated from the blood or serum during the febrile phase of the disease, up to 2 weeks postonset. Antibody can be detected by CF, IFA, or ELISA. In severe cases, patients can die before the appearance of antibodies.
Other laboratory results:
• Leukocyte count can be low, normal, or moderately elevated.
• Platelet counts are usually normal, but might be slightly low.
• AST (SGOT) and ALT (SGPT) are usually elevated (10x normal).
• Chest x-rays are usually normal, but may show pleural effusions or basilar pneumonitis.
• Albuminaturia (excessive amounts of albumin proteins in the urine) is common.
• ECGs are usually abnormal.
Initial possible diagnoses of the Lassa-infected patient may include malaria, shigellosis, and typhoid.
MORTALITY (DEATH) RATES:
Prognosis for Lassa patients has a direct correlation to levels of viremia. However, prognosis does not correlate with the patient's development of IgM or IgG antibodies. The antibodies do not seem to neutralize the Lassa virus.
The mortality rates for Lassa virus are typically estimated at 15% to 20%. Some studies estimate mortality as high as 45%. One survey of Lassa infection vs. mortality rates indicates that less than 1% of all Lassa-virus infections in West Africa will eventually result in fatal disease. The mortality rates for Lassa appear to be much higher in people of non-African stock.
Lassa virus also causes high fetal mortality and high mortality in pregnant women. The mortality rate is 92% for fetuses in early pregnancy, 75% for fetuses in the third trimester, and 100% in the neonatal period for full-term babies. High concentrations of the virus have been found in both fetal tissue and in the placenta. It is suspected that maternal T cells cannot attack the concentrations of virus in the placenta because placental cells cannot express class I or class II MHC antigens.
The mortality rate for gravid women is 7% in the first two trimesters, 30% in the last trimester, and 50% for pregnant women who delivered within 1 month. In contrast, the general mortality rate for nonpregnant women only is 13%.
TREATMENT/ PREVENTION :
For adults, ribavirin: 2-gm loading dose, followed by 1 gm every 6 hours for 4 days; followed by 0.5 gm every 8 hours for 6 days. There is no treatment for the deafness (which resembles idiopathic nerve disease) associated with Lassa fever. Antibiotics may also be administered to patients to ward off or treat secondary and/or opportunistic bacterial infections.
Severely ill patients may receive treatment before the diganosis is confirmed.
Currently, there is no effective prophylactic (preventive) treatment for Lassa fever. However, some sources recommend prophylactic doses of Ribavirin for people coming in high-risk contact with viremic patients.
OUTBREAKS AND HISTORY OF INFECTION.
Lassa fever was first recognized in 1969 in Lassa, Nigeria. Subsequent outbreaks occurred in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In some parts of Sierra Leone and Liberia, 10% to 16% of all patients admitted to hospitals have Lassa fever. Some Lassa fever cases have been "imported" into the U.S. and U.K. through viremic travelers who acquired the disease elsewhere.
A few notes on outbreaks:
- 1969, northern Nigeria - first recognized outbreak of the disease.
- 1970 to present, Liberia. Most cases were hospital workers who acquired the disease in the hospital from the index patient.
- 1970 to present, Sierra Leone. It is estimated that 6% of all residents in the initial endemic area have antibodies to Lassa Fever, even though only 0.2% were recognized as clinically ill.
- Estimated 100,000-300,000 infections per year in West Africa.
About 2/3 of all reported cases are women, but this might be a result of exposure, rather than a tendency toward greater susceptibility in women to the disease
VACCINE:
No vaccine is currently available. However, the most promising approach to developing a vaccine appears to be via vaccinia-vectored Lassa genes. These have been protective in both guinea pigs and nonhuman primates.
HOWEVER, Studies with rodents have shown that infection with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) or Tacaribe can confer protection against normally lethal attacks of Lassa virus.
NOTE: This file/post is for information only. It is not intended for diagnosis.
DASUKIGATE: IMPLICATED PDP MEMBERS ACTED ON THEIR OWN – PDP'S DEPUTY SPOKESMAN
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, has exonerated the party from the arms gate scandal, challenging party chieftains implicated in the scandal to declare whether or not they collected those monies for the party.
Briefing newsmen at the party headquarters in Abuja yesterday, Jalo admitted that the scandal has been damaging to the PDP even though it also implicated chieftains of other political parties.
He said: “Now darkness has now come to light that some people who received the money are not only in the PDP, let us not particularize it. APGA has collected, highly respected Olu Falae collected it, Tanko Yakassai collected. We are not talking of the PDP alone, we are talking of all those that collected money meant for buying arms and this monies were taken away, collected under the guise of campaigning for Goodluck Jonathan.”
Jalo wondered whether there was any directive from the former President which asked former NSA, Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd) to distribute money meant for fighting insurgency for his campaign noting that the practice is to give campaign funds via party chairmen.
He said, “Is there any time Jonathan asked Dasuki to go and distribute money meant for fighting Boko Haram for his campaign? It is known to us that money meant for campaigns are given to the National Chairmen of various political parties.”
Jalo stated that those who collected monies through their registered private companies, including Haliru Bello and Olisa Metuh who received N600 million and N400 million respectively, but did not pay it into the party’s account, should be allowed to answer the questioned put to them without causing additional burden on the party.
He also called for inquiry into the contracts awarded to the companies to establish whether they carried out the contracts awarded to them or not.
“So let me ask: what has that got to do with PDP? When Olisa was acusing Lai Mohammed that he collected a contract from one of the South West states, even Lai Mohammed took him to court. It is not PDP. Now the hunter has become the hunted. Lai’s case is not over, Olisa is under investigation.
“So let us put the records straight; we want any one of these people that has being accused whether in PDP or in APC or APGA to come out and tell us that this money he has collected was given to PDP or any other party. Let them come and tell us that when he was given this money, was he given to go and campaign for Jonathan? If yes, then let him present the paper and evidence. But they should know that this money was not meant for that (campaign). It’s meant for arms purchase,” he said.
CBN GOVERNOR, GODWIN EMEFIELE, EXPLAINS WHY CBN STOPPED SALE OF FOREX TO BDC's
As part of measures to reduce pressures on the nation’s foreign reserves, the Central Bank of Nigeria has stopped the sale of foreign exchange to all Bureaux De Change in the nation.
The reserves, which closed last year at $28.364 billion, dropped last weekend to $28.193 billion.
The Governor of the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who announced the policy change in Abuja said “The bank (CBN) would henceforth discontinue its sales of foreign exchange to BDCs. Operators in this segment of the market would now need to source their foreign exchange from autonomous source. They must, however, note that the CBN would deploy more resources to monitoring these sources to ensure that no operator is in violation of our anti-money laundering laws.
“Despite the fact that Nigeria is the only country in the world where the central bank sells dollars directly to BDCs, operators in this segment have not reciprocated the bank’s gesture to help maintain stability in the market. Whereas the bank has continued to sell Dollars at about N197 per dollar to these operators, they have in turned become greedy in their sales to ordinary Nigerians, with selling rates as high as N250 per dollar.
“Given this rent-seeking behaviour, it is not surprising that since the CBN began to sell foreign exchange to BDCs, the number of operators have risen from a mere 74 in 2005 to 2,786 today. In addition, the CBN receives close to 150 new applications for BDC licences every month.
“Rather than help to achieve the laudable objectives for which they were licensed, the bank has noted the following unintended outcomes:
“Avalanche of rent-seeking operators only interested in widening margins and profits from the foreign exchange market, regardless of prevailing official and inter-bank rates;
“Potential financing of unauthorized transactions with foreign exchange procured from the CBN;
“Gradual dollarization of the Nigerian economy with attendant adverse consequences on the conduct of monetary policy and subtle subversion of cashless policy initiative; and prevailing ownership of several BDCs by the same promoters in order to illegally buy foreign currencies multiple times from the CBN.”
Read more at http://www.theheraldng.com/the-bank-cbn-would-henceforth-discontinue-its-sales-of-foreign-exchange-to-bdcs-operators-in-this-segment-of-the-market-would-now-need-to-source-their-foreign-exchange-from-autonomous-sour/#8vMZIMsf4lOdxGyu.99
SHOCKING! SEE OLISA METUH'S NEW LOOK IN DETENTION
It was reported that the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Olisa Metuh went on hunger strike, and has refused to disclose how much he collected from Dasuki until Monday... See his shocking new look below;
