O'Mezie

Arboviruses.

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

Jason Arday.
Sad end.

[Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, CGoF @ChidiOdinkalu]

Anambra State Gov, @CCSoludo, reportedly claims the entire South East economy only contributed 7.9% to the GDP of #Nigeria compared to Lagos state, Niger Delta and Abuja.

He adds that if these major regions & cities were to shut down, Nigeria would be affected because they contribute a major percentage to the GDP of the country but for the south east, even if it falls under a volcanic eruption tomorrow, the economy of Nigeria will not be affected. Nigerians will only see the collapse as a human disaster and move on with their lives unperturbed because the south east brings nothing but 8%.

Governor Soludo should be thanked for inspiring a necessary debate. He has invited a debate & there should be one about both statistics & interpolations based on statistical claims.

One problem with econometrics is the reduction of human issues to numbers only. Numbers do not always explain every human situation but let me begin with Gov Soludo's numbers.

He claims that SE accounts for a mere 8% of Nigeria's GDP. I will get to the credibility of that shortly. But let's examine this claim.

The SE officially accounts for about 15% of Nigeria's population. If it produces a mere 8% of the GDP - as the Governor claims - i.e. about half of its weight in population terms, that must make the region (pound for pound) the place with the least productive human beings in Nigeria. That is clearly an unsupportable claim. The numbers thrown around by the Governor are just not viable.

But, let's go further. The corollary of Governor Soludo's point must be that Nigeria calibrates its response to insecurity in any part with reference to the economic or political significance of that part to the wider country.

So, can we then find out which part the country has responded to effectively?

May be it is North-West with a reported 29% of the population?

Or SW, the economic behemoth of the country, where kids have been kidnapped & their teachers beheaded & the regime is asleep? By the way, in case no one has noticed, there are active abductions occurring routinely in 4 of the 6 states in at least the SW.

The gateway city of Ilorin is significantly shutdown by the activities of terrorists.

Maybe it is in the reputed breadbasket of the Middle Belt?

Or perhaps it is in the regional borderlands of the NE which has been aflame for the better part of 2 decades?

The Niger Delta may appear mostly stabilized but that is through pipeline security contracts to the militants, who are the cause of the insecurity there. That is not effective response; it's sovereign capitulation.

There is just no evidence to support the underlying rationale or thesis of the Soludo argument.

Instead, what appears evident is that the Nigerian state is historically dissolute. It din't begin today & it has not been improved until today.

In a country with unviable statistics in which informal economies account for over 70% of productivity & employment, it is dangerous at best & surely misleading to formulate these kinds of arguments based on GDP numbers for the formal economies.

What Governor Soludo achieves through his argument is to promote or excuse irresponsibility as a directive principle of state policy.

Section 17(2)(c) of the 1999 constitution requires that "governmental actions shall be humane". The provision before that equally requires the actions of government to be measured with reference to their capacity to promote dignity of all citizens.

That is not accomplished by telling any part of the country that they're expendable.

It is not politics, it is not economics, it is not law, & it is not political economy.

I am obviously not making an argument in support of Monday #SitAtHome & I certainly have no interest in doing that.

But when people are complaining of inequity, it is not an effective or useful response to tell them they are useless & irrelevant, especially when they are in a country that has demonstrated an incapacity & unwillingness to care.

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

Lest we forget!
#ANZACS

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

How can I lose if I came with nothing...

[Ascende Superius🕊💀❤️‍🔥 @Tomfreddie2]

Philosophy has to be the most encompassing thing humans have ever created. I remember being told that “philosophy is life,” but I think it’s much more than that. Philosophy is transcendence.

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

Our immune system is an evolutionary masterpiece. Every day it protects us from the thousands of different viruses, bacteria and other microbes that attempt to invade our bodies. Without a functioning immune system, we would not survive.

One of the immune system’s marvels is its ability to identify pathogens and differentiate them from the body’s own cells. The microbes that threaten our health do not wear a uniform – they all have different appearances. Many have also developed similarities to human cells, as a form of camouflage. So how does the immune system keep track of what to attack and what to protect? Why doesn’t the immune system attack our bodies more frequently?

Researchers long believed they knew the answer to these questions: that immune cells mature through a process called central immune tolerance (see image). However, our immune system turned out to be more complex than they believed. Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

BREAKING NEWS
The 2025 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

@kenonyema1 , greetings.

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

@Globalbiosec Be comforted, Raina.
Beautiful tribute!

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

@Globalbiosec My condolences, Raina.

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

@asemota “… an accident that could’ve been investigated … but he got out free by calling someone in power.”…”The recharge card seller died, was forgotten & the driver now owed people who got him out a lot more favours.” “This is the true corruption in Nigeria…. “ True. Sad!

[NEJM @NEJM]

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐲 is a treatment that delivers fragments of DNA to cells to replace missing or defective DNA or to enhance cell function. Multiple approaches are under development, but currently approved gene therapies involve encapsulating a corrective or therapeutic gene within the shell of a modified virus that allows it to enter cells efficiently. The virally delivered corrective gene can integrate into the patient's own DNA (depicted here), which offers the potential for a lasting therapeutic effect, or it can remain extrachromosomal (separate from the patient's DNA), in which case, the dosage of the corrective gene (per cell) dilutes with cell division.

To learn more about this NEJM Illustrated Glossary term, read the editorial “Genetic Medicine for Danon Disease” by Elizabeth M. McNally, MD, PhD (@emmcnally), and Melissa J. Spencer, PhD, from @NUFeinbergMed and @dgsomucla: https://t.co/lVS2XJIRZ7 

Explore more terms: https://t.co/kobNxmaQrY

[Starbird Lab @StarbirdLab]

We are excited to hire a postdoctoral fellow to study the mechanisms that viruses use to 'hikjack' TAM receptors to enter host cells. We are looking for someone who is excited to learn new techniques and work in highly collaborative team! Please share!

https://t.co/JkyOTBgykt

[Dominik Hrebik @F4ustus]

I am very happy to announce that we solved the in-virus #cryoEM structure of the #HIV matrix protein. The structure helped us to resolve a long mystery in HIV biology. A🧵1/5
Read more in @Nature : https://t.co/rVDC5LomAn 🧪

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

Fear the Nigerian elite.
Fear them.

[Joana Azeredo @azeredo_joana]

📢 Historic day for Portugal and phage therapy! 🇵🇹 A framework was approved, allowing magistral preparation of personalized phage products. 🙌 Grateful to Jean-Paul Pirnay, my group @AzeredoLab Portuguese patients, and doctors who signed a petition inspired by the Belgium model.

[Viruses MDPI @VirusesMDPI]

📅 Join the Global Virus Network #webinar on November 26, 2024, with Dr. Tony Schountz, professor at Colorado State University!

🦇Topic: Jamaican Fruit #Bats as an Experimental Model for #Virology and Immunology

❗️ Register here: https://t.co/TLOWa1TK5u
@GlobalVirusNews

[IVVN @IntVetVaccNet]

Dr Yongxiu Yao from @Pirbright_Inst shares some interesting insights on genome editing of avian herpesviruses for recombinant vaccine development!

#IVVN2024 #VaccinesforPoultry #VaccineInnovation

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

If you think the next big idea in your field will come from inside the field, you're probably wrong.

[O'Mezie @omeziee]

Four years. And we remember them.
20:10:20

[VignuzziLab @VignuzziLab]

Join me Nov 17 at the Institut Pasteur @institutpasteur, where I will present defective viral genomes as new RNA therapeutics, covering new work from @qdinhtran and @biofadialnaji

Drug Discovery and Screening Symposium "Vaccines and Therapeutics"