Category: Special Report

As the world makes frantic efforts to contain the effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), which the World Health Organisation has described as a pandemic, CHINAKA OKORO conclude his retospection on previous pandemics and their economic implications

 

Continued from yesterday

 

2010

An epidemic of cholera killed at least 10,000 people in Haiti in 2010 following a deadly earthquake that paralysed socio-economic activities in that country. The United Nations later apologised for initially denying claims that Nepalese peacekeepers brought the deadly disease to the country following the earthquake.

 

2012

In 2012, approximately 122,000 people worldwide died from measles, a highly contagious disease caused by a virus. Typhoid fever kills around 216,000 people a year. Tuberculosis, an infectious bacterial disease, killed an estimated 1.3 million in 2012. These are some of the infectious diseases that most concern health officials currently.

 

2014

The 2014 epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa was the largest Ebola outbreak on record. The virus killed more than 11,300 people before it was declared to have ended in 2016.

 

2016

The World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency of international concern over Zika virus, predicting that three to four million people would be infected within a year as it was “spreading explosively” throughout the Americas.

Zika is the first mosquito-borne disease to cause a birth defect. Medical experts say the devastating birth defect is microcephaly. The virus is also associated with miscarriage, stillbirth and other neurological deficits.

While not deadly in the way other epidemics are, there is a huge impact on future generations when fewer children are born because parents are afraid of the virus.

Despite the persistence of disease and pandemics throughout history, there seems to be one consistent trend over time. This is a gradual reduction in the death rate, which could be as a result of improved health care and an appreciable knowledge of the factors that incubate pandemics. These have been powerful tools in mitigating their impact.

 

Economic impacts of epidemics

Writing on Finance and Development in June, Vol. 55, No. 2 2018 edition of Pandemics and the Global Economy, David E. Bloom, Daniel Cadarette and JP Sevilla noted that new and resurgent infectious diseases can have far-reaching economic repercussions.

David E. Bloom, a Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, Daniel Cardarette, a Research Assistant and JP Sevilla, a Research Associate at Harvard University’s Teaching Hospital, Chan School of Public Health maintained that the health risks of outbreaks and epidemics—and the fear and panic that accompany them—map to various economic risks.

“A sizeable outbreak can overwhelm the health system of any country, limiting the capacity to deal with routine health issues and compounding the problem. Beyond shocks to the health sector, epidemics force both the ill and their caretakers to miss work or be less effective at their jobs, driving down and disrupting productivity.

“Fear of infection can result in social distancing or closed schools, enterprises, commercial establishments, transportation, and public services—all of which disrupt economic and other socially valuable activities, they said.

Apart from the above, the concern over the spread of an outbreak can lead to decreased trade.

They cited the ban imposed by the European Union on exports of British beef which lasted for 10 years following the identification of a mad cow disease outbreak in the United Kingdom. This, according to them, impeded the vibrancy of the British economy in some way.

“Travel and tourism from and to regions affected by outbreaks are also likely to decline. Some long-running epidemics, such as HIV and malaria, deter foreign direct investment as well,” they maintained.

The scenarios are playing out in Nigeria generally and some states of the federation that have ordered the closure of markets, schools and other social events as a result of the current Coronavirus pandemic.

On the inequitable distribution of the economic risks of epidemics, the trio stated that “the consequences of outbreaks and epidemics are not distributed equally throughout the economy. Some sectors may benefit financially, while others will suffer disproportionately.

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“Pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines, antibiotics, or other products needed for outbreak response are potential beneficiaries. Health and life insurance companies are likely to bear heavy costs, at least in the short-term, as are livestock producers in the event of an outbreak linked to animals.

“As with other forms of risks, the economic risk of health shocks can be managed with policies that reduce their likelihood and that position country to respond swiftly when they occur,” they stated.

Despite significant medical progress over the years, infectious diseases such as influenza or malaria still represent a considerable threat to humanity.

While the first and most crucial aspect of an epidemic is, and will always remain, the loss of human life, the spread of a virus can also have important repercussions for national or regional economies.

Research reports from various studies indicate that epidemic disease impacts on a country’s economy through several channels, including the health, transportation, agricultural and tourism sectors.

At the same time, trade with other countries may also be affected, while the interwoven modern economies indicate that an epidemic in one country can also implicate international supply chains.

Research initiated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed that “vulnerable populations, particularly the poor, are likely to suffer disproportionately from an outbreak, as they may have less access to health care and lower savings to protect against financial catastrophe.”

“At the regional level, a World Bank report estimates that “the recent Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, cancelled-out many of the previous years’ economic gains for the three countries which, until then, were among the fastest-growing economies in the world.”

 

Managing the risk

Epidemiologists and experts in Pathology are of the view that pandemic risk is complex, even as they agreed that policymakers have tools at their disposal to respond to the challenge.

“Some tools”, they say “minimise the likelihood of outbreaks or limit their proliferation, others attempt to minimise the health impact of outbreaks that cannot be prevented or immediately contained. Still, others aim to minimise the economic impact.”

 

What to do

To effectively manage an outbreak of global proportion, experts have advised that “every country should invest in improved sanitation, provision of clean water and better urban infrastructure which, they say, can reduce the frequency of human contact with pathogenic agents.

“Building strong health systems and supporting proper nutrition will help ensure good baseline levels of health, making people less susceptible to infection. Strengthening basic systems, services, and infrastructure becomes easier with economic growth and development.

“However, policies to protect spending in these areas even when budgets are constrained can help safeguard developing economies from major health shocks that could significantly impinge upon human capital and impede economic growth.

“Investment in reliable disease surveillance in both human and animal populations is also critical. Within formal global surveillance systems, it may be beneficial to develop incentives for reporting suspected outbreaks, as countries may reasonably fear the effects of such reporting on trade, tourism and other economic outcomes.

“Informal surveillance systems which aggregate information from official surveillance reports, media reports, online discussions and summaries and eyewitness observations, can also help national health systems and international responders get ahead of the epidemiological curve during the early stages of an outbreak. Social media offers additional opportunities for early detection of shifts in infectious disease incidence.

“Countries should be ready to take initial measures to limit the spread of disease when an outbreak does occur. Historically, ships were quarantined in port during plague epidemics to prevent the spread of the disease to coastal cities.

“In the case of highly infectious and highly transmissible diseases, quarantines may still be necessary, although they can inspire concerns about human rights,” experts advised.

 

Collaboration is crucial

The profit-seeking interest does not align well with the social interest of minimising the risk posed by an epidemic.

The drive to make more financial gains in the stead of helping fellow humankind to survive an epidemic outbreak would not allow those who sell or produce antidotes to the health problem to willingly make the products available for people in need of them to access them.

To make more gains, some of the traders create artificial scarcity by hoarding the products, a situation that makes the prices to skyrocket.

In the circumstances, there is significant market failure when it comes to vaccines against individual low-probability pathogens that collectively are likely to cause epidemics.

Given the low probability that any single vaccine of this type will be needed, high Research and Development (R&D) costs, and delayed returns, pharmaceutical companies hesitate to invest in their development.

The advantage is that the authorities can take proactive steps to manage the risk of epidemics and mitigate their impacts. Concerted action at the local, national and multinational levels can go a long way toward protecting our collective well-being in the future.

 

The Coronavirus pandemic is forcing people to change the way they live. Nigerians are finding creative ways to adapt, writes ROBERT EGBE

 

You remember, Hopscotch, that game children play by drawing squares or rectangles in the sand and hopping from one box into another? Adults played it in Ibadan on Monday morning. Well, kind of.

A drugstore in Ibadan, Kunle Ara Pharmacy, came up with the simple but ingenious social distance idea for checking the spread of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) among its customers.

The lines, drawn on the floor of the crowded compound, showed shoppers the distance they should keep from each other to reduce their chances of having contact with a ‘possible’ carrier of the virus.

Kunle Ara Pharmacy’s social distancing brainwave is one unexpected way COVID-19 is changing the way Nigerians now live.

With one COVID-19 death recorded and 44 cases confirmed yesterday by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), measures cannot but be introduced to curtail the spread.

All over the country, weird is gradually becoming the norm as people try to adapt to a faceless, highly contagious and dangerous enemy.

Until the Coronavirus outbreak, Nigerians had the habit of telling anyone sneezing: Sorry! That has now changed. People sneezing are viewed with suspicion and avoided. In fact, people sneezing now find themselves being the ones apologising for the act.

In Lagos, for instance, one noticeable way people’s lives are being affected by social distancing is in their mode of transport.

The Lagos State Government on Monday banned passengers from standing on public buses, to prevent overcrowding.

The problem is, Lagos is one the world’s most densely populated cities and, yesterday morning, passengers at most of the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) terminals scrambled for position in buses in defiance to the social distancing directive.

A video surfaced on the internet showing some of the passengers practically cramping on one another as they jostled to collect tickets from officials.

But by afternoon, sanity prevailed and orderly passengers maintained a safe distance from one another.

In Abuja, more than 70 passenger vehicles were impounded for flouting a directive not carry overload.

Banks and shopping malls were not left out of social distancing.

Several banks with small banking halls now limit the number of customers that can enter at a time. Others wait outside in well-spaced queues.

Of course, bowls of water and soap or sanitisers are now a regular feature outside their premises for compulsory handwashing.

No one knows when humans started shaking hands, but, according to history.com, humans have probably been doing it in one form or another for thousands of years.

Read Also: NCDC confirms 44 COVID-19 cases as Ogun traces 32

 

Same goes for hugs among same or opposite sexes.

Before the virus broke out, Nigerians’ love for travelling was legendary. The country’s airports were always busy. A plug has been pulled on that. In order to check the spread of the coronavirus, the Federal Government has banned international flights into Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) announced the ban in a statement signed by its Director General, Musa Nuhu, on March 21.

“Further to our earlier letter on restriction of international flights into Nigeria, we wish to inform you that effective Monday, 23 March, at 2300Z to 23 April, at 2300Z, Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, will be closed to international flights.

“This is in addition to the closure of Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, and Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, effective Saturday, 21 March at 2300Z.

“Henceforth, all airports in Nigeria are closed to all incoming international flights with the exception of emergency and essential flights.”

NCAA added that domestic flights would continue operations at all airports across the nation.

Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika said the Federal Government had cancelled already issued visas for travellers from 13 countries.

He listed the countries as: China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Japan, France, Germany, Norway, USA, UK, Netherlands and Switzerland, pointing out that Austria and Sweden were later added, bringing the number to 15.

“The affected countries have over 1,000 cases domestically. Some of the foreign airlines expected to be equally affected are British Airways, Lufthansa, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, AirFrance, KLM, Delta Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, South African Airways, Kenyan Airways, Rwandair, Turkish Airlines, Egypt Air, Royal Air Maroc and Africa World Airlines.

“Data from the NCAA showed that from January 2019 to December 2019, the foreign airlines recorded 15,474 flights into the five international airports in Nigeria with an average of 298 flights weekly,’’ the minister said.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said disruption of air travels would cost Nigeria $434 million revenue loss and 22,200 jobs.

IATA, an umbrella body for 290 airlines globally, added that Nigeria would also lose approximately 2.2 million passengers, and that the spread of the virus, that was first reported in Wuhan, China, at the beginning of December 2019, would negatively impact the aviation industry worldwide.

With the announcement of each infection, Nigerians are becoming more reluctant to shake hands. More people are adopting the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s recommended greeting styles.

So, don’t be surprised if you see people doing any of these styles: The wave, salute, elbow bump, bow, Namaste greeting, foot bump or hip bump.

How long can we keep this up? No one really knows. Probably for as long as the virus is a threat.

Public health experts believe social distancing is the best way to prevent a truly horrific crisis, not just in Nigeria, but across the world.

The measure is even more important in the country because of our fragile healthcare system.

Basic hospital equipment in first world countries that are a necessity for combating the virus, such as ventilators and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds, are a luxury here. Not that they are all a country needs to suppress the spread. Italy, for instance, is reeling in the throes of the pandemic and has the highest death rate in the world.

Hopefully, and like some religious Nigerians like to say, “Our case will be different”.

Rice is a staple food in Africa but supply falls far short of demand with yields in the sub-Saharan region due to a variety of factors, including the use of low-yielding outdated local varieties, traditional cultivation practices among others, in this report, JULIANA AGBO writes on how the Genetically Modified, Nitrogen-Use Efficient, Water-Use Efficient and Salt-Tolerant (NEWEST) rice, currently undergoing trials in three countries including Nigeria will reduce fertiliser use, boost production.

 

Demand for rice in Africa is increasing at over 6 per cent per year, faster than any other staple food. Local rice farmers are not yet able to capitalise on this demand, as African smallholder farms yield on average 2 tons per hectare, as compared to the global average of 3.4 tons.

This is due to a variety of factors, including the use of low-yielding outdated local varieties, traditional cultivation practices, low involvement of private seed companies in rice seed production and business, and prevailing biotic and abiotic stresses, together with climate change adversities.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO-UN), farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) produce about 20 million metric tons of rice annually, yet the continent imports 9 million metric tons, which is valued at $4 billion.

Most of the rice in SSA is produced and consumed by small-scale farmers who are often constrained by the cost and availability of new technologies that could help them increase food output.

Agriculture is the world’s second-largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrogen fertiliser, applied to increase crop yields, is one of the largest contributing factors to these emissions.

With conventional growing practices, crop plants absorb less than 50 percent of nitrogen fertilizer applied to fields. Much of the remainder becomes a water contaminant or is volatilized as nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

In some countries, rice is among the most nitrogen-intensive crops. Globally, rice production accounts for nearly 16 percent of total fertiliser use.

To this end, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) has conducted over 15 Confined Field Trials in three African countries on the Genetically Modified, Nitrogen-Use Efficient, Water-Use Efficient and Salt-Tolerant (NEWEST) rice, after it received a cost-free license from Arcadia Biosciences in 2008 for use in New Rice for Africa (NERICA).

The project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under Feed the Future, the U.S. governments global hunger and food security initiative, saw its first trial in Badeggi, Niger State in 2016.

The Director, Information and Documentation Department, National Cereal Research Institute (NCRI), Prof Mohammed Ishiaq, who emphasised that rice demand exceeded production in most Sub-Saharan Africa, said insufficient rice production affected well-being of over 20 million smallholder farmers who depend on rice as a staple.

He said the challenge associated with nitrogen deficiency and its impact on rice production in Africa is worrisome, adding that the challenges are precisely what the NEWEST rice hopes to fix.

“Sub-Saharan Africa countries are spending more than US$5 billion annually on rice imports, rice production deficit along with large outflow of foreign exchange presents great development challenge to governments in SSA.

Low yields experienced by farmers are responsible for rice imports in SSA where over 40 per cent of the rice consumed is imported. Also nitrogen deficiency has been cited as a major constraint to rice production; nitrogen is difficult to maintain when applied in lowland areas due to floods,” he said.

 

Field trials and variety release

According to the NEWEST Rice Project Manager, AATF, Dr Kayode Sanni, who noted that the Foundation has conducted over 15 Confined Field Trials in three African countries,  said the first trial was carried out in Badeggi, Niger state in 2016.

Read Also: Leveraging technology to boost food security

 

He said: “We have also conducted the trial in one country in Latin America, Colombia by CIAT, so our target in the project is to get those materials released in the three countries where we are carrying out the trials.”

The regulatory trial is going on in four different locations, the first location is Badeggi in Niger State, the second trial is going on in Mokwa, Niger state, the third trial is going on in Kumasi, Ghana and the fourth trial is going on in Lamlonge in Uganda just some few kilometres away from Kampala,” he said.

While explaining that the Foundation is currently at the regulatory trial stage, he said the purpose of the trial is to develop a dossier which will be submitted to the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) for eventual environmental release as a variety.

According to him, “When it is released as a variety that is when it gets to the hands of the farmers for use, and the first step there is for it to get to the local seed companies that are going to produce the seed and make it available for farmers’ use.

Speaking further on multi locational field trials, Dr Sanni said: “The technology is transgenic, and because it is transgenic, you cannot go into multi-locational trials until you have environmental release. When we finish the regulatory trial towards the end of this year, and we submit the dossier to NBMA and we get the environmental release, then we can produce all across the country.

“For now, since we have not submitted the regulatory trial result and we have not gotten the environmental release, we can only produce in Confined environments, and confined environment cannot be established in everywhere, it is cost intensive and as a result of that, that is why we are confined in two locations.

 

Environmental safety

On environmental safety, Dr Sanni said the Foundation has conducted a research on the early food safety, the result has shown that the product is safe for human consumption, it has no allergelicity, samples are being collected for compositional analysis, and the purpose of the compositional analysis is to show that there is no difference between the transformed product and the original product that was not transformed apart from the yield that we said we are going to get under low nitrogen condition.

The second important thing is about the environment, because when you reduce the amount of fertiliser you use, you are reducing the amount of fertiliser residue on the soil which has a negative impact on the environment, so you are reducing the toxicity of nitrogen in the soil, it also help reduce the amount of nitrogen transmitted in the atmosphere, because you have reduced the amount of Nitrogen you are using.

The amount of Nitrogen that is transmitted to the atmosphere is cut down, so invariably at some level, it helps you to protect the environment and reduce the amount of fertiliser residue on the soil, increase the yield, reduce environmental pollution, and also, it is a kind of mitigation against climate change because when there is depletion of the soil maybe due to some hazardous effect, runaway of the soil surface which reduce the amount of nutrients on the surface of the soil, that is the impact of climate change, and the technology does not remove climate change, but it helps the plant to survive under it, so that is exactly what it does.

 

Expected benefits

The expected benefits from the NEWEST rice project include a reduction of the continent’s dependence on imported mineral nitrogen fertilisers to boost rice yields, reclamation of croplands abandoned because of soil nutrient depletion and salt accumulation and farmers access to improved rice varieties better suited to nitrogen-deficient, water-deficient and saline environments.

AATF Executive Director, Dr Denis Kyetere, said the goal of the project was to develop, disseminate farmer preferred, locally adapted rice varieties with enhanced nitrogen, water use efficiency and salt tolerance.

He noted that it would lead to food sufficiency, adding that food self-sufficiency in rice will redirect limited foreign exchange used to import rice.

Kyetere said: “There will be improved rice yields resulting in enhanced household food security and production of marketable crop surplus.”

“Also abandoned croplands will be reclaimed reducing land shortages; an additional 1.3 million tons of rice will be produced in Africa each year, reducing the current deficit by 10 per cent.

“One big advantage of the technology is that currently the fertiliser use is about 120kg of Nitrogen per hectare and we all know the cost of fertiliser, we all know that it not easily accessible to farmers. So, what this technology is doing is that it is maximizing the advantage of Nitrogen in the soil, for instance, when you apply your fertiliser to a soil, 70 per cent of that nutrient is depleted, the plant does not use it, it is wasted, but what we have done in the Nitrogen Use Efficiency is to be able to reverse it and make the plant to be able to use 70 per cent of the nitrogen and just about 30 per cent is wasted.

What that is translating is that even at 30 to 60kg Nitrogen per hectare, the rice plant can still be able to give the farmer the yield, an additional fertiliser can make the yield to go up, but the good thing is that even at that low level of nitrogen, the farmer can still get the normal yield he is supposed to get.

This means that it reduces the cost of production by the farmer, and that will make the product of the farmer to be competitive with the imported rice.

“In the past trial we have been able to record about 40 per cent increase in yield, which shows that the farmer is going to use lesser cost of production to produce the crop, and still get an increase of about 40 per cent yield increase.

So that is a reduction in cost of production which can invariably translate into the reduction in price of locally rice and as a result of that, that will make rice produced to be competitive, and when it is competitive with the imported, people will be able to buy more rice, farmers can produce more, and the more the farmer can produce, the more the capacity of the farmer to produce is increased,” he added.

A farmer based in Niger State, Salisu Adamu, said the improved rice varieties will enable farmers to improve their rice production and food security for their families and also get more proceeds from the sale of increased produce.

Adamu said: “One of the biggest challenges of farmers is fertiliser and because you are going to reduce the amount of fertiliser you need, it enhances sustainability, it shows that even if the fertiliser availability is not much the farmer can still produce.”