Health

Covid measures ‘plan C’ has been discussed, senior official tells MPs

A “plan C” for tougher coronavirus restrictions has been discussed in official circles, a senior civil servant has confirmed, despite ministers denying that tougher measures are an option this Christmas should the rate of new cases continue to rise.

The indication of planning for potentially harsher restrictions comes as senior scientists and Labour push for the rollout of “plan B”, an existing package of “light-touch” measures including advice to work from home and compulsory face masks in some settings.

Last week the health minster Edward Argar denied that anything of the order of a plan C – which could include restrictions on household mixing at Christmas – was being contemplated by the government.

However, the term was used on Tuesday by Prof Lucy Chappell, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), when MPs asked whether a failure to bring in plan B actions now may mean tighter restrictions are needed later.

“I think it suggests that plan A and plan B and whatever the plan C looks like are mutually exclusive, but they are not,” she told the science and technology select committee on Covid transmission.

Chappell was then questioned on whether a plan C did, in fact, exist.

“It has been proposed … The name has been mentioned. It has not been extensively worked up,” she said, adding that at the DHSC, “at the moment, the focus is on plan B”.

Dr Thomas Waite, the interim deputy chief medical officer at the DHSC, said it was up to the government, not scientific advisers, to decide whether plan B should be introduced. He suggested there was no single measure or threshold that would inform the move, rather a consideration of various factors, including age-stratified case rates, the rate of change in hospital admissions, the impact of waning immunity, and the influence of booster jabs.

The evidence session also included testimony from Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, who suggested that although transmission in the UK was high, focusing on daily figures of Covid hospitalisations and deaths was misleading, noting they included people who needed medical help or had died for another reason.

Pollard also suggested that regular testing in schools was problematic.

“Clearly, the large amount of testing in schools is very disruptive to the system, whether that is the individual child who is then isolating, because they’ve tested positive, but they’re completely well, or it’s because of the concerns that that raises more widely in the school,” he said.

“I think probably we need to move in the pandemic, over this winter, maybe towards the end of the winter, to a completely different system of clinically driven testing,” he said. “In other words, testing people who are unwell rather than having a regular testing of those people who are well.”

Pollard said that while vaccinating people who have yet to have a Covid jab would make a big difference for intensive care, and booster doses may reduce hospital admissions, vaccinations alone would not be enough to remove pressures on the NHS.

“When you look at where the NHS is today, it is incredibly fragile, whether it’s in primary care and secondary care or in social care, and that fragility is only contributed [to] a small amount by Covid,” he said.

Health

Lassa fever, meningitis kill 366 in 24 states – NCDC

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has reported a total of 366 deaths from Lassa fever and meningitis in 24 states of the federation.

The NCDC via its official website on Friday, highlighted the continued public health challenge posed by these diseases.

From Jan. 1 to May 18, the centre confirmed 733 cases of Lassa fever from 5,118 suspected infections across 18 states and 95 local government areas.

Within the same period, it said it recorded 141 Lassa fever-related deaths, representing a case fatality rate of 19.2 per cent.

The NCDC said that in week 20 alone, new infections jumped from three to 13 cases in Edo, Ondo, and Benue.

“The case fatality rate stands at 19.2 per cent slightly higher than 18.3 per cent in 2024, indicating that one in five people infected is dying, inspite of coordinated national efforts,” the NCDC warned.

It said that the hotspot states for Lassa fever include Ondo 30 per cent Bauchi (25%), and Edo 17 per cent which together account for 72 per cent of all confirmed cases.

The centre said that the disease was hitting young adults hardest, particularly those aged 21 to 30 years, with a nearly equal male-to-female ratio.

It noted that no new healthcare worker infections were reported in the past week, but highlighted a surge in cases and called for heightened vigilance.

The agency said that a multi-sectoral Incident Management System has been activated to coordinate response efforts nationwide.

On the meningitis front, the centre said the figures were even more alarming.

The NCDC said that from 2,911 suspected cases, 192 have been confirmed and 225 lives lost, translating to a case fatality rate of 7.7 per cent.

The agency said that children aged five to 14 were the most affected, with males accounting for 60 per cent of all reported infections.

It said that the outbreak has reached 24 states and 173 LGAs, with 10 northern states—including Kebbi, Katsina, Sokoto, and Jigawa—reporting 97 per cent of suspected cases.

In response, the NCDC has activated a national Emergency Operations Centre to coordinate interventions in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), and development partners.

It said that regular high-level meetings with affected states were ongoing to streamline containment strategies.

“We are providing continuous technical support to high-burden states and reinforcing outbreak preparedness across the country,” the NCDC said.

Freedomonline reports Lassa fever is a viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted primarily through contact with the urine or faeces of infected rats.

It can also spread from person to person through bodily fluids, contaminated objects, or infected medical equipment.

Symptoms include fever, sore throat, headache, vomiting, muscle pain, and in severe cases, bleeding from body openings.

Health

20 million Nigerians live with mental health issues – WHO

A report by the World Health Organisation says 20 million Nigerians, representing 20 per cent of the country’s population, live with mental health conditions.

Dr. Azubike Aliche, the Secretary, Board of Trustees of the Nigeria-American Institute for Mental Health (NAIMH), said this at a mental health GAP Action training programme organised by the institute, in Owerri, on Tuesday.

The training was organised in collaboration with the Centre for Social Awareness, Advocacy and Ethics (CSAAE), a Non Governmental Organisation.

Aliche said that the training, sponsored by the Nigeria Mental Health Practitioners (NMHP) USA Incorporated, would equip non-psychiatrists to be able to conduct screens to identify mental health symptoms and work with people to manage those symptoms.

He described as “alarming” the caseload of depression in Nigeria, which he said, was reportedly the highest in the world and called for deliberate efforts to change the narrative.

“Available reports indicate that only 10 per cent of people living with mental illness have access to care in Nigeria and this has to change”.

Speaking, an Executive Member of the NMHP USA, Rev. Sr Josephine Nzeke, said that the four-day training would capture a total of 25 health care professionals, five from each of five council areas of Imo in its pilot stage.

She said that the trainees would return to their different community health centres after the training to provide grassroots services.

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Chioma Egu, described the mental health crisis as a “ global challenge” and called on the institute to leverage government’s mental health policies.

One of the training facilitators, Mr. Justice Ulunta, of the Federal University of Allied Health Sciences, Enugu, called for the allocation of adequate resources by the government for the training of mental health experts and equipping of facilities.

Also, CSAAE’s Chief Operations Officer, Miss Francisca Ekwonu, said that the organisation was open to effective collaborations to tackle the challenge head on.

“As Nigerians grapple with hardship and young people are subjected to information overload, it is part of our mission, through our C-Health program, to propagate mental health support at the grassroots.

“ Our toll free line 08009001000 is open and our mental health support specialist will be there to provide support”, she said. (NAN)

Health

Sierra Leone reports over 3,000 Mpox cases, death toll climbs to 14

The number of cases of mpox registered in Sierra Leone since the beginning of the year has hit 3,011, with 14 dead, according to new government data.

All of the regions in the West African country have now registered cases, according to the latest health ministry figures released late Friday.

The new figures were nearly 50 per cent rise in registered cases since the previous update 10 days ago, on 13 May, when 2,045 cases and 11 fatalities were registered since the start of the year.

Mpox is caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, manifesting itself in a high fever and skin lesions.

First identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, the disease had generally been confined to a dozen African countries before spreading more widely from 2022.

The WHO declared its highest level of alert in 2024.

A police training centre in the capital Freetown has been refurbished into a 400-bed facility to deal with the increasing cases, authorities said.

A decade ago, Sierra Leone was one of the countries worst affected by an Ebola epidemic, which between 2014 and 2016 killed about 4,000 people, including nearly seven per cent of health professionals.

Other African states have seen rising cases of mpox, with thousands of cases notably afflicting Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Kenya.