Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) have formed a consortium with the  Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Afrigen Biologics (PTY) Limited, the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of Southern Africa (Biovac) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) aimed at addressing the global COVID-19 vaccines manufacturing capacity…

Cautions against overregulating products of New Plant Breeding Techniques A call has gone to African governments and regional economic communities to strengthen and harmonise their biotechnology policies and biosafety regulations in order to create an enabling environment for biotechnology development and deployment in Africa. Plant Breeder and Molecular Geneticist, Dr. Emmanuel Okogbenin who is Director…

Experts say continent’s rice fields losing 4.4 million MT of Nitrogen yearly Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda to begin next phase of trials for Nitrogen efficient rice variety  By Onche Odeh Africa is currently battling a combination of factors that are preventing countries from meeting their local rice consumption demands and from making the best of…

Officially releases PBR Cowpea for commercialisation By Onche Odeh Nigeria on Tuesday made Agricultural research and development history, especially in the field of biotechnology with the ceremonial release for commercialization of the Pod Borer Resistant (PBR) Cowpea. Released as SAMPEA 20-T variety in Nigeria in December 2019, the PBR Cowpea is the first food crop…

 More than 12.5 million hectares of land across Africa will be dedicated to the production of SAMPEA20-T, the new variety of Cowpea that was launched in Nigeria on Tuesday, President of the All-Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Arc. Kabiru Ibrahim has disclosed. Ibrahim also disclosed that not less than eight million Nigerian farmers and their…

African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) has announced the appointment of Dr. Canisius K. Kanangire as its new Executive Director effective 1st July 2021. He takes over from Dr. Denis T. Kyetere who proceeds on retirement after serving the organization for nearly 10 years. A national of Rwanda, Dr. Kanangire obtained his doctorate degree in  Aquatic…

Kenya’s biosafety authority has given approval for the environmental release of a genetically modified (GM) cassava developed by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO). The official notification of the approval by Kenya National Biosafety Authority (NBA) for the release of the GM cassava, named Cassava event 4046, which is resistant to cassava brown…

  A group of researchers made mostly of engineers have used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop a novel method that could tame the emergence of new strains of COVID-19 virus. The new research by the University of South Carolina (USC) School of Engineering team is among the first few of such targeted at providing a…

By Onche Odeh The Medical Sub-committee of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT)’s Ministerial Expert Advisory Committee on COVID-19 has cleared the air on the procedures for COVID-19 testing, stressing that no COVID-19 intervention centre in the FCT will ever send back anyone without testing them. Chairman of the Sub-committee, Dr. Ejike Oji, who stated this…

By Onche Odeh Nigeria’s Food and Drug Regulator, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has said it is discussing with manufactures of candidate COVID-19 vaccines concerning potential Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), registration or licensing of their product as the case may be. This would, however, be based on results from Phase…