Toyota Priuses THIRD BEST SELLING CAR IN 2012

If you thought you were seeing Toyota Priuses absolutely everywhere these days, you were right. The hybrid car has gone from a small, niche vehicle to global top-seller in just over a decade.

High demand in the U.S. and Japanese incentives for domestic vehicles were driving factors in the Prius hitting the third-best selling mark in the first quarter of this year, where Toyota sold 247,230 of the vehicles globally and 86,027 in the U.S. alone. The expansion of the Prius family to include four models of vehicles also drove up sales.

Number one Toyota Corolla, number two Ford Focus and the rest of the top five best-selling cars were all smaller, fuel-efficient sedans, which shows a global consensus that fuel efficiency is a necessary feature in a car.

The fact that the Prius has gone from an "alternative vehicle" in 2000 to a full-fledged mainstream car in 2012 means that same evolution is just as achievable for the all-electric models that have hit the market in the past couple of years, especially as charging infrastructure spreads across the country and around the world

I'M GAY AND THE HEAD OF ILLUMINATI IN NIGERIA - NIGERIAN ENTERTAINER

Controversial maverick entertainment personality, Charles Oputa, better known as Charly Boy, has set another record with his confession that he is gay.
By confessing, he becomes only the second publicly known gay man in Nigeria.
This is a record that Pastor Rowland Macaulay beat him to by being the first Nigerian to openly come out and even establish a church that catered for only gays.
Those who know Charly Boy well however say he's not someone who likes being a follower.
He's always a leader in everything he does and he's now ready to take his rightful leadership position in the gay world.
In an interview with a new publication, Danfo Express, Charly Boy declared that he is gay and not ashamed of being gay.
Even as he made other disclosures about himself, he didn't forget to add that he is the head of the Illuminati in Nigeria, the same Illuminati that people accuse Jay-Z, D'Banj and Don Jazzy of being members and they keep denying membership.
While his audacious revelations might seem like a publicity stunt on his part, let's not forget the popular saying 'there's no smoke with-out fire'.
For Charly Boy to say all these things about himself there must be an element of truth in them.
As a judge on Nigerian Idol, not only did he impose himself on other judges, Yinka Davies and the American, Jeffrey Daniels, he was always going with a skull to the show and once even went with a huge snake that scared the audience

HIV - AIDS

Like a breath of fresh air, the news that a combination prevention drug would soon hit the Nigerian market is definitely something to cheer about, given Nigeria’s high prevalence of HIV rate, which is said to be second only to South Africa in the African continent. WINIFRED OGBEBO reports.
It is like Sunday-Sunday malaria drugs. But in this case, you take HIV drug to prevent HIV and HIV negative people, says the Director-General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Prof John Idoko, explaining the new prevention treatment drug, pre- exposure Prophylaxis.
“From what we learnt from malaria for example, he explains further, “if we give the drugs to somebody who doesn’t have HIV, and the person has sexual relationship with an HIV positive partner, it can prevent transmission from the positive person to the person. That is why it’s called a pre- exposure prophylaxis because before exposure, the person has taken the drugs and because he has the drugs in him, the virus cannot infect him or her.”
Also, Idoko says, “ If you take this sero-discordant couples; one is positive and the other is negative, instead of giving the drug to the negative person before the sexual relationship, just put the positive one on drug as soon as you know. It doesn’t matter what his CD-4 count is even if it’s 500, just give him the drugs. It has shown clearly one of the best study results that we have seen, as 96 per cent chance of the person transmitting HIV is blocked. So we call that treatment as prevention. So you can now imagine that if you go to a community, and they are using this method, your chances of blocking transmission are very high. We believe that these are the two things we need to put together as part of our combination prevention method.”
The pre-exposure prophylaxis is the newest HIV prevention tool that has been developed. It involves the use of Truvada, an antiretroviral to prevent HIV infection. A few studies have shown the ability of this drug to prevent HIV infection in sero-discordant couples, MSMs, transgenders and in men and women.
Most recently, on the 10th of this month,2012, the drug was approved by FDA in USA for use for HIV prevention tool also. It had been previously approved for use as an HIV treatment drug.
PrEP may be part of a new comprehensive HIV prevention services that had been proved “safe and effective” in which HIV negative people who are at high risk take antiretroviral medication daily to prevent infection.
The director (Prevention, Care and Treatment) at the Family Health International, Dr Hadiza Khamofu, said that infections in low risk relationships are acquired from high risk sexual encounters.
She cited a recent study carried out by Dr Taiwo Ijawogin of the University of Ibadan on condom use with sex workers and abstinence behavior among men in Nigeria.
According to her, about 62 per cent of new infections occur among persons perceived as practising “low risk sex” including married sexual partners.
She stated that the ante-natal care prevalence rate of 4.1 per cent exists among the 160 million Nigerian populations, adding that pregnancy presents a period of higher risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV infection.
At the moment, there are stakeholders conducting a study in the country to evaluate the use of Truvada as PrEp in combination with other HIV prevention tools (male and female condoms, PMTCT, HTC, PEP, behaviour change communication) in reducing the incidence of HIV in Nigeria.
According to the director of resource mobilization, NACA, Dr Emmauel Alhassan, the roadmap for moving forward the agenda on PrEP access in Nigeria aims at identifying areas of collaboration on policy, regulatory and delivery and implementation.
“We’ve found out in other countries that the prep actually reduces new infections- and very significantly. And so, this particular meeting is trying to look at ways and means of using that in Nigeria to ensure that we bring down the rate of new infection of HIV.”
“It’s been in use now for quite some time, although its relatively new. There’s been some research done in South Africa and in some other countries and the results have started coming in. In the past, I guess two to three years, there’s been a lot of work, and we feel that this is something we should explore in Nigeria.”
“In South Africa, it’s something that has been used and that’s why we have this stakeholders meeting to decide, to see whether we should do feasibility study first. We need to get all the stakeholders involved to look at evidence from other countries, to look at our programmes especially the rate of discordance in couples, because some men could be HIV positive and their wives negative and vice versa. We are looking at this as a potential to helping those who are not positive to, at least, remain negative. So at the end of the meeting, we’ll have some timelines for moving the prep access forward in Nigeria.”
However, a lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University who is also involved in the research, Mrs Morenike Ukpong, noted that combination prevention is not a new phenomenon.
According to her, HIV has structural issues that promote it. For example, she says, poverty, gender inequality and stigma are structural problems that must be addressed.
“We also appreciate that there are biomedical interventions: male and female condom, male circumcision, prEp, treatment and prevention. Behaviour also matters if you’re asked to use a condom. If you don’t use it, you won’t use it. So behaviour also has a component. So, people do appreciate that when you’re talking about prevention, all those things must come together for it to have effect in the nation. So that is the concept of combination prevention. So the things that you add on for cumulative effect, and the combination that you put together for young people might not be the same combination you put together for adults.
“The combination you put together for male sex workers might not be the same combination for females. This is why combination prevention becomes specific in strategy.”
She said that right now, there is an interest in looking at prEp as a component of combination treatment for women who are pregnant and are into discordant relationship, knowing that within that structure, the use of condom becomes a challenge.
Evidence suggests that the magnitude of serodiscordance among pregnant couples is high and is a significant window for transmitting new HIV infections.
“It’s a challenge especially when you’re asking couples now who are sero discordant to use condom all the rest of their lives. Within that challenging situation, if you now use prEp, how effective will it be on the population? That is what we are looking at, prEp as a combination prevention,” Ukpong said.
Idoko said that combination prevention, addressing PMTCT, putting people on drugs, and putting more efforts and investment in these places, are the best way to bring down HIV prevalence in Nigeria.
However as good as this new ‘wonder prevention’ drug may seem, many experts have expressed some reservations.
Tope, a midwife and HIV Counsellor based her concerns on the issue of adherence to the drug.
“I read on the internet that Truvada needs to be taken every day, 100% of time for prevention of HIV virus in HIV sero-negative person/partner. My 22 years experience as registered nurse/midwife and 5 years experience as an adherence counsellor tells me that won’t happen. It is difficult to get somebody that is not sick to take drug consistently every day. Adherence is a big issue that must be critically discussed. “
Also, she observed that the use of PrEp drug could give the users a false sense of security and encourage risky behaviour. For example, she says men who had had challenges using condom who now hear about PrEP could abandon condom and there is the risk of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis.
Another expert expressed the fear that if clients on PrEP get infected with HIV either by skipping some doses of the drug or by stopping the use of condom, then the country will be faced with the problem of drug resistance which is more deadly. “Imagine spreading drug resistance virus in Nigeria,” the expert warned.
However, Ukpong says that despite the fears, it is a proof that there is hope in the fight of HIV infection. “So we should not be tired and we should continue the fight. We shall overcome.”

IS ACCIDENT A GAIN OR A PAIN?

               NIGERIA-IS ACCIDENT A GAIN OR A PAIN?

According to International Labour Office statistics, 120 million occupational accidents occur annually at workplaces worldwide. Of these, 210,000 are fatal accidents. Every day, more than 500 men or women do not come home because they were killed by accidents at work. These are dramatic numbers which draw fairly little public attention. Considering the fact that accidents take a considerable economic toll from nations, companies and individuals, BUT accidents do not get much publicity.

Fortunately, there are people working with a sense of purpose, often behind the scenes, towards understanding and managing safety and accident prevention better, and their efforts have not been wasted. Our understanding of accident prevention and safety is on a far higher level than ever before. Many world-class researchers and safety practitioners share this new knowledge. During the past twenty decades, knowledge about accidents has evolved considerably. We have left behind the simplistic model of dividing behaviour and conditions into two categories: safe or unsafe. The rigid belief that any activity can be placed into either category has been put aside as more sophisticated systemic models have been developed and proven effective in managing safety.

The important observation is that two safe conditions which by themselves are safe may not be safe together. Workers are the connecting link, as their behaviour changes according to the environment and their physical surroundings. As an example, power saws caused many accidents when they came into use in the 1960s due to a hazard known as “kickback”, which takes the operator by surprise when the chain-saw blades hit a branch, knot or harder point in wood. Kickback killed and injured hundreds of people before a guard were invented to protect the operator. When Sweden implemented regulations requiring the kickback guard, the number of power saw injuries went down from 2,600 in 1971 to 1,700 in 1972. This was a major breakthrough in power saw accident prevention.

Every user of power saws knows from personal experience that this noisy, vibrating and obviously sharp cutting tool appears to be very dangerous to use, and the beginner operator is very cautious. However, after hours of experience operators lose their sense of any hazard and start handling the saw less carefully. The kickback guard may produce a similar effect. An operator who knows that kickback is possible try to avoid it. When operators know that there is a mechanical device preventing the saw from hurting them in event of kickback, they become less cautious. In another forestry industry chain-saw example, studies have shown that leg protection makes workers less careful and they expose themselves more often to kickbacks, because they believe they are protected.

Despite the fact that kickback protection has helped prevent injuries, the mechanism is not straightforward. Even if these protective arrangements have been successful, in the final analysis their effects do not have a linear relationship with safety. Two safe conditions, kickback guard and leg protection, do not double the safety. The normal arithmetic of one plus one equals two (1 + 1 = 2), does not apply in this case, as one plus one makes less than two. Fortunately, one plus one (1 + 1) makes more than zero in some cases. In other cases, however, the sum may even be negative.

The simple division of behaviours and conditions into safe and unsafe does not lead very far toward prevention. The credit for progress has to be given to systems management. After understanding that humans, their tasks, their equipment and the environment make up a dynamic system, we need to make considerable effort towards more effective accident prevention. The following examples demonstrate the dynamic nature of people and work. If one component is changed, the others do not remain the same, and the ultimate safety effect is hard to estimate in advance.

In aviation and in other highly engineered and automated systems, we have seen that increased automation may not necessarily result in improved safety. For example, operators may not get enough practice to maintain their skills in a highly automated system. When they then are required to intervene, they may not have the necessary competence or ability.

Some paper manufacturers have indicated that younger employees do not understand the functions of a paper machine as well as the older employees. The older employees have operated non-automated machines, and they have seen how these work. The new automated machines are operated from control rooms through computer keyboards and screens. The operators do not know the exact location of each component of the machines they operate. Therefore they may bring a component into a state which, for example, causes a hazard to the maintenance people in the vicinity. A technical improvement in the machinery or controls without simultaneous improvement in operators’ skills, knowledge and values may not result in improved safety.

Accident prevention has been traditionally based on learning from accidents and near accidents (near misses). By investigating every incident, we learn about causes and can take actions towards mitigating or removing the causes. The problem is that we have not been able to develop, in the absence of sufficiently good theories, investigation methods which would bring up all the relevant factors for prevention. An investigation may give a fairly good picture about the causes. However, this picture is usually relevant only for the specific case investigated. There may be conditions and factors which contributed to the accident whose connections the investigators do not recognize or understand. Generalizing from one accident to other situations bears a degree of risk.

The good news is that there is now a considerable progress in the area of predictive safety management. A number of techniques have been developed and have become routine for industrial safety and risk analysis. These techniques allow us to study industrial production plants systematically for the identification of potential hazards and to institute appropriate action before anything happens through job safety analysis and the risk assessment.

The chemical and petrochemical industries have shown leadership in this area worldwide. As a result of major catastrophes, such as BP oil spillage, the use of the new predictive techniques has increased. Remarkable progress has been made since the mid-1970s in the area of safety. Many governments have also been leaders in making safety analysis mandatory. Sweden, Finland, Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany and have all reduced fatal occupational accidents by 60 to 70% during this time Many other countries show similar progress even Nigeria (as a result of accident consequences witnessed in the Niger delta). Now, the challenge is to transfer our knowledge from research into practical applications and further improve our preventive efforts.

One of the new steps in safety management is the notion of safety culture. It may be a difficult concept, since culture is not a visible entity. It is an abstract concept prevailing within an organization or society. There are no direct ways of adjusting it. Safety culture is, however, a crucial concept for understanding the possibilities of prevention. One of the goals is to explore this new concept of prevention. It is possible to prevent occupational accidents. We do not need to tolerate this unnecessary toll to our well-being and economy.

In view of the foregoing, is your organisation a PAIN OR A GAIN? Find out and decide the way forward....

Commy 2012.