Americans â as well as other people in nations around the world â are being bombarded almost daily with updates about the highly transmissible coronavirus Delta variant.
Necessary and, more than that, urgent: Delta is shaping up to be a major killer of the unvaccinated, and not necessarily excluding young people, even schoolchildren.
It has become clear that this variant remains extremely difficult to contain.
Time will tell its ultimate toll of illness and death.
But COVID-19, which wreaked such a toll of death and serious illness for more than a year, has not gone away, and its terrifying impact is not destined to disappear anytime soon, despite the vaccines that have been developed.
The promise of the African genome project economist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from economist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Blood Donor Day: Severe consequences as Nigeria gets 27% of annual blood need
In Nigeria, 80-90 per cent of maternal mortality is as a result of bleeding complications due to shortage of blood. 9 min read
Today, in line with the tradition of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Nigeria joins countries around the world to mark this year’s edition of the World Blood Donor Day (WBDD).
But like many other African nations and some other developing countries globally, Nigeria suffers greatly from her poor culture of blood donation.
Due largely to challenges of poor policy formulation and implementation, lack of enabling legislative framework and funding difficulties, collection, distribution and use of safe blood for a healthier population has been a herculean task for government agencies and non-state actors in the line of such responsibilities in Nigeria.