The Kaduna State Students’ Union (KADSSU), Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS) chapter recently held an orientation programme for newly admitted students into the university.

The event which was held at the Faculty of Art and Islamic Studies Lecture Hall on Saturday, was well attended by indigenes as well as lecturers of the state.

Among the attendees were Mr Islamila Jaafar, who was the guest speaker and also the representative of the Librarian of the institution; Mr   Ibrahim Aminu, Director, Management Information System Centre; and the Students’ Union Caretaker Committee’s chairman, Al-Amin Musa.

In his remark, Islamila told charged the students to be law abiding and endeavour to be good Samaritans to their peers, while also remaining attentive to their academic pursuit.

He also made it known to the new students about a change in the grade point, as there was no more grade E, and the minimum pass grade at the institution is now C for all courses.

“Any score below 50 per cent is considered as failure,” he said.

Mr Aminu added that the centre is available to attend to any problem the students might have with the school’s account, noting that the university would make access to the internet free for the students.

The president of the association, in his address, thanked the students present, while also assuring them the union will always entertain all their needs.

Olawumi Yasin

(300-Level, Department of English Language, Usmanu Danfodiyo University)

A major success has just been recorded in the fight against Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa through the development, production and deployment of the first Ebola Rapid diagnostic Test Kit (ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test), which is a result of a collaboration between the Redeemer’s University, its strategic partners in the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC) and Corgenix Medical Corporation (CMC) in Colorado State, USA.

The new Ebola Rapid diagnostic test (RDT) has received a global endorsement as the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and World Health Organisation (WHO) approved and authorised for listing the usage to health care community worldwide.

The test kit is to be used for the presumptive detection of Ebola Zaire virus (detected in the West Africa outbreak in 2014) in individuals with signs and symptoms of Ebola virus infection in conjunction and with epidemiological risk factors (including geographic locations with high prevalence of Ebola infection.)

The Ebola RDT is the first immunoassay authorised for emergency use by the FDA for the presumptive detection of Ebola virus. The EUA allows the use of the ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test in circumstances when use of a rapid Ebola test is determined to be more appropriate than use of an authorized Ebola nucleic acid (molecular) test, which has been demonstrated to be more sensitive in detecting the Ebola Zaire virus.

The authorised ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test is not intended for use for general Ebola virus infection screening, such as airport screening or contact tracing.

Unlike molecular testing, which in West Africa can still take days to return results from central testing laboratories, the newly developed RDT is a point-of-care test that can be used in any clinical facility adequately equipped, trained and capable of such testing, or in any field laboratory with trained personnel capable of such testing, to diagnose suspected Ebola cases in 15-25 minutes.

“The FDA and WHO have been working closely with us throughout this process to get this new test in the hands of those battling on the front lines of the Ebola outbreak as quickly as possible,” said Douglass Simpson, Corgenix President and CEO.

“Completing this product development in less than a year demonstrates how governmental agencies, regulatory bodies, industry, non-profits and others can work together to find solutions to catastrophic events such as the Ebola virus outbreak.

“This collaboration has enabled us to quickly deliver this critically important point-of-care test and potential breakthrough in the fight against Ebola in the current outbreak in West Africa.”

Ebola is indigenous to Africa and is one of the deadliest viruses in the world, with mortality rates of between 30 and 90 per cent. Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers are difficult to discriminate because many of the early signs and symptoms are nonspecific and common to other infectious diseases such as Dengue fever, Lassa fever, typhoid and malaria.

The ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test was developed by Corgenix in cooperation with additional members of the VHFC, a collaboration of academic and industry members headed by Tulane University, including Autoimmune Technologies LLC, Zalgen Labs LLC, The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, as well as Redeemer’s University in Nigeria.

Mr Simpson noted, “We are pleased to be part of the VHFC. This is a remarkable group of scientists who have been in the forefront of research in Ebola, Lassa fever and other dangerous viral diseases in Africa for many years.

“This has the potential to be a game-changer in stopping the spread of the epidemic,” said Dr. Robert Garry, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Tulane, and Principal Investigator of the VHFC. “Instead of taking days for lab results, the Ebola RDT uses a drop of blood from a finger prick to deliver a diagnosis in as little as 15 – 25 minutes, potentially allowing trained public health workers to isolate and treat patients immediately. Medical personnel will be able to quickly identify hotspots and may prevent resurgence of cases in the current outbreak.”

“Our ability to develop and deploy the Ebola Rapid diagnostics test within a very short window, is a clear demonstration of our capability to translate knowledge of viral genomics into tools that significantly change healthcare in Africa,” said Dr. Christian Happi, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics, and Director of the World bank-funded African center of Excellence for Genomics of infectious Diseases (ACEGID) at Redeemer’s University. “We will continue to use the genomics platform that we have established at ACEGID, for the development of tools for the control and elimination of neglected infectious diseases in Africa,” Dr. Happi further stated.  

The FDA’s emergency use authorization of the ReEBOV™ Antigen Rapid Test is for the presumptive detection of Ebola viruses (including Ebola Zaire virus detected in the West Africa outbreak in 2014) in individuals with signs and symptoms of Ebola virus infection in conjunction with epidemiological risk factors, including geographic location with high prevalence of Ebola infection. The test was also evaluated under WHO’s Emergency Use Assessment and Listing procedure, which provides independent technical information on safety, quality and performance of in vitro diagnostics, principally to other United Nations (UN) agencies but also to WHO Member States and other interested organizations in the context of the Ebola emergency.

Mr. Simpson stated that the VHFC will remain actively engaged in efforts to advance additional diagnostic products, some already under development for viral and parasitic diseases, and to expand collaborations with global health care partners, including providers in West Africa. The consortium has already developed a suite of additional laboratory assays to complement its RDTs. These additional assays are being developed to permit confirmation of point-of-care test results and augment much needed serosurveillance capabilities via ongoing and future seroprevalence studies on both Ebola and Lassa fever.

Final year students of the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, recently visited the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) to learn basic skills, on value addition and strategies of agricultural enterprise, that would enhance their studies.

While receiving the students at the university’s Agricultural Media Resources and Extension Centre (AMREC), Dr Oluwafunmilayo Oluwalana told them to dream big but start small.

She also encouraged them to seek and acquire knowledge in their youthful days, since information was vital to development. She noted that the main challenge facing the agricultural sector in Nigeria was in the area of value addition of agricultural products, as she urged relevant stakeholders to find lasting solutions to the problem. She also charged the upcoming agricultural entrepreneurs to develop a business plan through which they will be properly guided to make headway in the industry.

“We have three mandates in the university: teaching, research and extension. Here in AMREC, we focus on value-added processing and agricultural business management. We bring agriculture to you as an enterprising adventure. And so far, three of our products in AMREC have been patented and we have been able to develop many products.”

Speaking on how to make agricultural business profitable, Dr Oluwalana disclosed that before one goes into agriculture business, one needs to know what makes the product special, who will buy the product and the name of the company, among other things.

Mr ‘Lasun Somoye of the centre also shed light on the Media and Farm Broadcast (MFB) Programme of AMREC in translating agricultural research findings into media materials, with emphasis on audio-visuals as well as extension publication, for dissemination to stakeholders in agriculture across the South-West.

Others who sensitised the students were Mr Adesanya Olukayode of the Extension and Adaptive Research (EAR), Mrs Adeloye Temitope of the Training and Farm Demonstration (TFD) and Mr Rotimi Onifade of the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) Programme.

According to a student leader of the OAU team, Bukola Ojo, the purpose of the visit was to enable them acquire more knowledge in agricultural technologies, which had led them to inspect various projects and locations in the university, such as the bakery, ‘garri’ processing factory, cashew nut factory and Palmwine factory, among others.

Ojo added that the visit was part of the basic requirements needed to pass the course on ‘Agro-Industrial Technology, Generation and Utilisation,’ with the primary purpose of developing appropriate technology in crop production, noting that FUNAAB was chosen for the visit because it had carved a niche for itself among the leading universities in the country in the area of agricultural practices.

Mr Adesanya of the EAR highlighted some of the areas the university had been able to impact on farmers, processors and funded projects.

“Our programme is saddled with the responsibility of taking agriculture trainings to schools, particularly, secondary schools, to stir up their interest. Through our ‘Agricultural in School Project,’ we have been able to organise trainings in cassava production, fish farming and so on. We also collaborated with other extension projects like CAVA II Project, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” he said.