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Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2021 — 3
COVID-19: US suspends J&J vaccine over
blood clots fears
CDC, FDA investigate 6 reported cases
.By Sola Ogundipe
LESS than a week after
Europe’s drugs
regulators admitted that
there is an extremely rare
chance of fatal blood clots
occurring in persons who
receive the AstraZeneca
COVD-19 vaccine, US
health agencies have
suspended the use of the
Johnson & Johnson, J&J,
single-dose COVID-19
vaccine following the
development of a similar
rare disorder involving
blood clots among
recipients.
In a joint statement, the
US Centres for Disease
Control and Prevention,
CDC, and the Food and
Drug Administration, FDA,
said they were reviewing
“six reported US cases of a
rare and severe type of
blood clot within 13 days
after receiving the vaccine.”
All the six recipients were
women between the ages
of 18 and 48. One woman
died and a second has been
hospitalised in critical
condition. About 7 million
Americans have so far
received the single dose
vaccine.
The regulators are
reviewing whether the
vaccine is safe to use
following discovery of the
extremely rare and severe
blood clot found in
recipients of the jab.
“Right now, these
adverse events appear to
be extremely rare. We are
recommending a pause in
the use of this vaccine out
of an abundance of caution,
to ensure that the health
care provider community is
aware of the potential for
these adverse events”, the
statement noted.
Following the
development, Johnson &
Johnson pharmaceutical
company has announced
that it would delay its
European rollout of the shot.
Food and Drug
Administration scientist
Peter Marks said the
disorder might be triggered
by a rare immune response
to the vaccine similar to that
seen among a few hundred
recipients of the
AstraZeneca jab in Europe.
Both the Johnson &
Johnson and AstraZeneca
vaccines are based on
adenovirus vector
technology.
The suspension is
another blow for the
troubled European vaccine
rollout campaign.
European Union has
signed a deal for 200
million shots of the vaccine
with an option for 200
million more.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the
acting FDA commissioner,
said she expected the
pause to last for just days.
From left—Director General, NACA, Dr. Gambo Aliyu; CEO, Lagos State AIDS
Control Agency, LSACA, Dr. Monsurat Adeleke; Chairman of Board, NACA, Senator
Dipo Odujirin, and Mr. Faud Laguda, at the graduation ceremony of Economic
Empowerment of Youth for HIV/AIDS prevention in Lagos.
“We are committed to
safety and transparency
and expeditiously learning
as much as we can so
further steps can be taken,”
said Dr. Anne Schuchat,
principal deputy director for
the CDC.
“When we saw this
pattern and were aware
that treatment needed to be
individualised for this
condition, it was of the
upmost importance to get
the word out,” she said.
“That said, the pandemic is
severe and it’s important to
get vaccine out so want to
make sure we make
recommendation quickly.”
Dr. Leana Wen, a former
Baltimore health
commissioner and a public
health professor at the
George Washington
University, called the
temporary halt of the
By Gabriel Olawale
MINISTER of Works
and Housing,
Babatunde Fashola has
urged Nigerians to me
more concerned with the
quality of environment in
which they live rather than
agitating for more
healthcare facilities.
He opinioned that the
conversation should focus
more on the wellbeing and
wellness of every citizen as
no quantity of health
infrastructure can be
enough, "our conversation
seems to be focus
predominAantly on the
quality of our health
facilities rather than the
quality of our environment.
"We focus more on the
number of hospitals,
doctors, nurses among
other health workers, while
that is good, I think the
Johnson & Johnson
vaccine “exactly the right
move.
“To be sure, this is a
disappointing setback,
because the one-dose J&J
has so much potential for
easy distribution &
administration. This, again,
is why a thorough
investigation is occurring.
“The reason this really
needs to be alerted now is
for doctors who may see
patients with this rare
condition, to know what to
look for and how to treat
them.”
The type of blood clot
reportedly found in the
vaccine recipients, known
as cerebral venous sinus
thrombosis, CVST, is
accompanied by low levels
of blood platelets.
It occurs when a blood
clot forms in the brain and
more need to be on the
quality of our environment.
For instance, cars are made
to work rather than to be in
mechanic garage and you
all know that we cannot
build enough garages in
case cars break down so
also we cannot build
enough hospitals.
"The COVID-19
pandemic has shown that
even the country with
abundance of hospitals
and facilities soon became
overwhelmed until they
return to the basics such as
hand washing, physical
distance, sanitation among
others.
“So ideal healthcare
system must emphasise
more on proper refuse
disposal, screening,
healthy living among
others while healthcare
facilities are not left behind."
Fashola, a guest lecturer
leads to hemorrhages. The
symptoms are similar to that
of strokes, such as
headache, blurred vision,
loss of mobility, seizures or
fainting.
People that have received
the J&J vaccine who
develop a severe
headache, abdominal pain,
leg pain or shortness of
breath within three weeks
after vaccination, have been
advised to contact their
health care provider.
Nigeria expects to receive
up to 70 million doses of the
J&J vaccine this year
through the African Union,
according to the the
Nigeria Primary
Healthcare Development
Agency, NPHCDA.
Up to 400 million doses
of the J&J vaccine are
expected to be delivered to
Africa by 2022.
We should prioritise environment more
than health facilities — FASHOLA
at the 7th Felix Oladejo
Dosekun Memorial
Lecture, said that Nigeria
should not wait for the
infrastructures to decay
before starting the
maintenance.
"We need to ask ourselves
on how we can replace,
expand the decayed health
infrastructures in the
medical schools. No matter
the quality of infrastructure,
if people do not used it
properly it will not last.”
Speaking on the theme,
"Medical Education in
Nigeria: The Challenges of
Infrastructural Decay",
Fashola said: "Our focus is
to redesign medical
schools that will improve
our public health and
preventive health,
especially epidemiology
area because of outbreak
of infectious disease or
viruses.
Study identifies potential
COVID-19 drugs
By Sola Ogundipe
A
TEAM led by
scientists in the
Perelman School of
Medicine at the University
of Pennsylvania has
identified nine potential
new COVID-19
treatments, including three
that are already approved
by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) for
treating other diseases.
The team, whose findings
are published in Cell
Reports, screened
thousands of existing
drugs and drug-like
molecules for ability to
inhibit the replication of the
COVID-19 virus.
Of the nine drugs found
to reduce the replication
in respiratory cells, three
already have FDA
approval
"Our discoveries here
suggest new avenues for
therapeutic interventions
against COVID-19, and
also underscore the
importance of testing
candidate drugs in
respiratory cells," said Dr
Sara Cherry, a professor
of Pathology and
Laboratory Medicine and
scientific director of the
High-Throughput
Screening (HTS) Core at
Penn Medicine.
Although great progress
has been made in the
development of vaccines
and treatments for the
By Sola Ogundipe
A
RENOWED Nigerian
gynaecologist and
fertility specialist, Dr
Abayomi Ajayi, has been
awarded the 2022 Endo
Hero of the Year Award by
the Worldwide EndoMarch
Board and Nezhart Family
Foundation.
The award was
presented in recognition of
Ajayi’s outstanding
contributions to the
community and cause of
ending the pain of
endometriosis through the
activities of the Nigerian
EndoMarch chapter - the
Endometriosis Support
Group Nigeria, ESGN.
Endometriosis is a disorder
in which the endometrial
tissue that normally lines the
uterus grows outside the
uterus, causing pain,
menstrual irregularities and
infertility, amongst other
symptoms.
In a statement announcing
the award, the World
EndoMarch Board
described Ajayi, who is the
Founder, and Patron of the
ESGN, as “an incredible
leader and inspiration in the
global endometriosis
community.”
In a response, Ajayi, who
is also the Medical Director,
Nordica Fertility Clinic,
Lagos, Asaba and Abuja,
recounted how, as a trained
SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus,
there is still much room for
improvement.
For their screening
project, Cherry and
colleagues assembled a
library of 3,059 compounds,
including about 1,000 FDAapproved
drugs and more
than 2,000 drug-like
molecules that have shown
activity against defined
biological targets. They
then tested all for their
ability to significantly
inhibit replication in
infected cells, without
causing much toxicity.
They identified a suitable
cell line, Calu-3, that is
derived from human
airway-lining cells. They
used these respiratoryderived
cells to test the
antiviral compounds
identified through the
human liver cell screen,
and found that only nine
had activity in the new cells.
The nine antivirals active
in respiratory cells include
salinomycin, a veterinary
antibiotic that is also being
investigated as an
anticancer drug; the kinase
enzyme inhibitor
dacomitinib, an anticancer
drug; bemcentinib, another
kinase inhibitor now being
tested against cancers; the
antihistamine drug
ebastine; and cyclosporine,
an immune suppressing
drug commonly used to
prevent immune rejection
of transplanted organs.
Ajayi wins ‘2022 Endo Hero
of the Year Award’
Dr Abayomi Ajayi
gynecologist and
obstetrician, he was
fascinated by the
disiscussions in the 80s and
90s when it was believed that
black women did not suffer
endometriosis.
Ajayi, who affirmed that
endometriosis is not a
Caucasian condition, noted:
“From the inception of my
fertility practice in 2003,
especially after the
introduction of endoscopy in
2005, we encountered
several patients with
advanced endometriosis.
“At that time, many people
in Africa were struggling to
pronounce the word
endometriosis,” he noted.
The ESGN is a non-profit
organisation committed to
raising awareness on
endometriosis and providing
support for women affected.