The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) have warned that billions of people around the world would be unable to access clean household drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene services in 2030 if the progress rate does not improve. According to a Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report titled “Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000 – 2020”, one in four people lacked safe drinking water in their homes with nearly half of the globe suffering from safely managed sanitation.

The Lassa fever vaccine clinical trials are set to commence in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Public Affairs of the United States Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria said. The disclosure was made in a statement on Monday, saying the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trial Partnership and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations has awarded €22.8 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to conduct a Phase IIB trial of the IAVI Lassa fever vaccine candidate among adults and children in Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia has donated medical equipment worth $1 million to Nigeria in a bid to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement, the Director Media and Public Relations of the Federal Ministry of Health, Olusegun Adetola said the handover of the medical equipment donated to the Nigerian Government took place at the Saudi-Arabia Embassy in Abuja on Tuesday. The donated medical equipment includes 23 ventilators, surgical sterile gowns, non-sterile gowns, surgical masks, and nitrile gloves.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed about three countries in Africa to be considered for the installation of local production capacity for the COVID-19 vaccines, improved availability of the vaccine. This was made known by the WHO Country representative, Dr. Kazadi Mulombo during a joint press briefing on updates on COVID-19 vaccination with the WHO, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Eighteen people have died on Thursday following COVID-19 complications, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said on Twitter. The deaths recorded raised the total COVID-19 death toll in Nigeria to 2,117 as the country has witnessed a spike in new cases. Lagos recorded the highest number of new cases with 105 new cases, Imo and Kaduna recorded 4 cases each, Akwa Ibom had 3, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) recorded 2 cases, while Delta, Rivers, Oyo, and Ekiti States recorded 1 case each, making the total cases on Thursday to 122.

China has on Thursday disclosed that it is providing COVID-19 vaccine to nearly 40 African Nations, Director of the Foreign Ministry official, Wu Peng said. According to Peng, the development is altruistic in apparent intensification, describing it as “vaccine diplomacy”, adding that the vaccines have been donated or sold at “favourable prices”.