… As Virologist advises FG against Dec. 1 deadline for vaccination of civil servants***

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday said deaths from Tuberculosis (TB), one of the top infectious killers in the world, increased for the first time in a decade, as a direct result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

WHO’s 2021 Global TB report highlighted how years of global progress in tackling the disease had been “reversed” since the pandemic overwhelmed health care systems in 2020, preventing vulnerable people from seeking help.

Lockdowns had also thwarted many people’s access to essential health care services, the report insisted, before issuing the additional warning that the death toll from the disease could be much higher in 2021 and 2022.

“This report confirms our fears that the disruption of essential health services due to the pandemic could start to unravel years of progress against tuberculosis,” WHO Director-General, Tedros  Ghebreyesus said.

“This is alarming news that must serve as a global wake-up call to the urgent need for investments and innovation to close the gaps in diagnosis, treatment and care for the millions of people affected,” he added.

Covering the response to the epidemic in 197 countries and areas, the TB report found that in 2020, some 1.5 million people died from TB in 2020 – more than in 2019.

Also read: COVID-19: NCDC registers 251 new cases, 5 deaths on Oct. 13

This included 214,000 patients with HIV, the UN agency said, noting that the overall TB increase was mainly in 30 countries which include Angola, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Zambia.

Because of the new coronavirus pandemic, “challenges” which made it impossible to provide and access essential TB services left many people undiagnosed in 2020.

In a worrying development, WHO noted that the number of people newly diagnosed people with the disease fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020.

It stated that far fewer people were diagnosed, treated or provided with TB preventive treatment compared with 2019.

Overall spending on essential TB services also fell, WHO said, adding that the highest drop in TB notifications between 2019 and 2020 were India (down 41 per cent), Indonesia (14 per cent), the Philippines (12 per cent) and China (eight per cent).

“These and 12 other countries accounted for 93 per cent of the total global drop in notifications,” said WHO.

There was also a reduction in provision of TB preventative treatment.

Some 2.8 million people accessed this in 2020, which was a 21 per cent reduction since 2019.

In addition, the number of people treated for drug-resistant TB fell by 15 per cent, from 177,000 in 2019 to 150,000 in 2020, equivalent to only about one in three of those in need.

Today, some 4.1 million people suffer from TB but have not been diagnosed with the disease or their status has not been reported to national authorities. This is up from 2.9 million in 2019.

The report’s recommendations include a call for countries to put in place urgent measures to restore access to essential TB services.

It recommended a doubling of investment in TB research and innovation and concerted action across the health sector and others to address the social, environmental and economic causes of TB and its consequences.

In the same vein,  Dr Solomon Chollom, a Jos-based Virologist, has advised the Federal Government against imposing Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine on its workers.

He said the proposed barring of civil servants who failed to take the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines from offices by Dec. 1, was curious as it raised more questions than answers.

Chollom, who is also the spokesman of Plateau Inter-professional Health Committee on COVID-19 Response in Jos, gave the advice while fielding questions on the development from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.

He noted that on the surface, the government decision would appear as a smart policy towards increasing vaccine uptake across the country.

NAN reports that the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 recently proposed that effective from Dec. 1, no federal government employee shall access office without presenting a safe Coronavirus certificate.

The federal workers shall be required to show proof of Coronavirus vaccination or present a negative COVID-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test result done within 72 hours, to gain access to their offices in all locations within Nigeria and at foreign Missions.

According to the committee, an appropriate servicewide advisory/circular will be issued to guide the process.

Reacting to the development, Chollom pointed out that the proposed policy will breach labour relations.

He said within the prism of labour laws the decision would violate fundamental rights of employees as it brushed aside people’s right to informed consent on medical decisions.

According to the expert, accepted that government is permitted to take desperate measures in form of executive decisions during emergency situations, especially those that constitute a threat to security, which public health is one.

He noted that the concern here was whether the current transmission rate, morbidity and mortality indices of the virus as well as hesitancy to the coronavirus vaccine constitute a graveous national challenge to Nigeria with economy and lives on the balance to warrant the desperate measure.

Chollom added that it appeared government had forgotten that Nigerians have raised vital questions that border on trust as far as governance during the vaccine rollout was concerned.

“To allay the fears of Nigerians who doubt the purpose and safety of the vaccines, government should have been seen to be busy raising policies and structures for in-country vaccine production, trials and evaluation to generate homegrown products and data that will answer and allay these genuine concerns.

“Unfortunately, Nigerians wake up daily to policies that seem to suggest that government has some social and economic advantage against the people in the COVID-19 pandemic,” he stressed.

He added that many Nigerians have queried why COVID-19 tests for international travels were referred to centres that charge exorbitantly, while over 70 free testing labs have been sited across the country.

Chollom however advised that the federal government should be mindful of cashing in on the vulnerable economy to entrench modern day slavery on her employees because they can accept anything to cling on to their jobs in view of the biting economy and lack of jobs around.

“What ratio of Nigerians works for the federal government to think of using them to scale up vaccine coverage to achieve herd immunity?

“Civil servants are still asking questions and agitating against policies and framework of Pensions Fund Administration, National Housing Fund and National Health Insurance Scheme, among others, for which the government has remained unresponsive.

“Instead of building confidence and looking into the issues raised regarding these policies, the government seem to be bent at raising more policies that enslave and demoralise the discouraged workforce

“Instead of usurping the rights of civil servants to medical decisions, the federal government should be seen to be aggressive on establishing framework that will allow for in-country development of products, raise more awareness on safety and efficacy of vaccines as well as have a balanced approach to all disease outbreaks especially the common ones that have been endemic in Nigeria,” the virologist explained.

He added that by this way, Nigerians would not take government efforts towards coronavirus as ulterior and self-serving.