Some people in the United States have tested positive after obtaining the COVID-19 vaccine, reports say. The New York Times says at least three members of Congress, a Hall of Fame basketball coach, and a nurse in California had all tested positive after obtaining the vaccine.

Reacting, experts say cases like these are not surprising and do not indicate that there was something wrong with the vaccines or how they were administered. They explained that, to start with, vaccines don’t work instantly.

The United Nations says the continuous destruction of wetlands around the world is a threat to global water availability. According to the UN, prompt proactive global actions are now needed to stop indiscriminate wetland destruction to avert serious global water availability challenge in coming years.

The UN stated this in a post posted on its official Twitter handle @UN on Monday to commemorate the 2021 UN World Wetland Day. The UN World Wetland Day is marked every February 2. It is used to call attention to the challenges facing wetland around the world.

A team of scientists from the Biomaterials Research Centre at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and the Asan Medical Centre in South Korea has developed a new technique that detects prostate cancer in patients with almost 100 percent accuracy within 20 minutes, using urine sample and artificial intelligence.

The current method of diagnosing prostate cancer, the most common type of cancer in men, is typically invasive if physicians must get a decent accuracy rate. In the study, published December 2020 online in the ACS Nano, the team of scientists developed a technique that diagnosed prostate cancer using urine samples and an artificial intelligence analysis system within 20 minutes.

Researchers at Swansea University in the United Kingdom say they are developing the world’s first smart vaccine device that will both deliver the COVID-19 vaccine and measure its efficacy through monitoring the body’s associated response.

The research, from the Institute for Innovative Materials, Processing and Numerical Technologies, will produce the vaccine through the use of microneedles to create a ‘smart-patch’. This device will simultaneously measure a patient’s inflammatory response to the vaccination by monitoring biomarkers in the skin.

Two medical practitioners on Thursday called on the Lagos State Government to urgently approve the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19 management. They are a former Chairman, Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Dr. Tunji Akintade; and public health expert, Dr. Femi Ogunremi.

The experts made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday in Lagos. 

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu says the Lagos Government is making efforts to transform the state-owned isolation centre in Gbagada into a fee-paying facility that people could elect to be treated at. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Sanwo-Olu made this known on Sunday in a statement in which he updated residents on the management of COVID-19 in the state.

He said that the decision was due to the growing clamour by patients and families that are willing to pay for COVID-19 treatment, but would like to do so at a cost that is lower than what currently obtains in private facilities.

The Lagos State AIDS Control Agency says an estimated 285 Persons Living With HIV/AIDS died in the first two quarters of 2020. The agency also disclosed that the state recorded about 8,385 fresh infections, with Eti Osa, Epe and Ikeja leading the pack of local governments with the highest prevalence rates.

According to the World Health Organisation, HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having killed almost 33 million people so far. However, with increasing access to effective HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, including for opportunistic infections,

A professor of Radiation Medicine at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Prof. Ifeoma Okoye, says the attention being accorded COVID-19 pandemic is robbing cancer patients of access to quality treatment.

Okoye says some oncology facilities, ventilators and other surgical interventions meant for cancer patients have been converted for COVID-19 treatment. 

While most experts agree that the risk of catching COVID-19 outdoors is very low, it still does not preclude efforts to maintain non-pharmaceutical protocols of checking COVID-19 spread, such as wearing face masks, avoiding large gathering and maintaining social distancing. 

This is because there is still the possibility of getting infected when you come too close to someone who is shedding viral loads through coughing or sneezing. 

Lagos Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, says the state plans to arrest the perennial challenge of brain drain through its proposed Blueprint For Medical Infrastructure Transformation. He described the blueprint as the harmonization and digitization of primary to tertiary institutions in the health sector.

Abayomi made the statement while analysing ‘State of Health Facilities and Vaccine Roll-Out Prospect’ on a live TV interview on Wednesday.