National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has recalled two specific batches of hypertension drug, Cardura XL (Doxazosin), manufactured by Viatris Inc.,American pharmaceutical company, over impurity issues.

The affected lots, identified by the batch numbers 81470418163765 and 81470408163764, are being recalled due to failure of critical tests for impurity levels and degradation, potentially affecting patient safety.

Cardura XL contains doxazosin mesylate and is commonly used to treat high blood pressure and help men with enlarged prostate to urinate better.

The use of poor-quality drugs, such as those that do not meet impurity and degradation standards, poses significant health risks including allergic reactions, anxiety, harm to the patient, or in extreme cases, death.

NAFDAC urged anyone in possession of the affected Cardura XL lots to immediately halt the use or sale of the drug, instructing them to return the products to the nearest NAFDAC office.

Consumers who have used the drug and experienced any adverse effects are strongly encouraged to seek medical attention.

New officials of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) were inaugurated by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) at the Commission’s Headquarters, Abuja.

Officers of the Commission inaugurated during the ceremony included: Director, PRS, Mr. Collins Nweke (Unit Chairman); Asst. Director Accounts, Mr. Shuaibu Bagudu (Member); Asst. Chief Accountant, Mr. Francis Isah (Member); Asst. Chief Copyright Officer, Ms. Roseline Imologome (Member); Principal Accountant, Mr. Taiwo Suleiman (Member) and Senior Admin Officer, Miss Seun Aluko (Member).

In his inaugural address, the ICPC Chairman, Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, expressed his appreciation to the Management and Staff of the NCC for facilitating the inauguration and hailed the Commission’s commitment to a strong and solution-driven copyright system that is able to sustain the creative industries and the knowledge ecosystem.

He noted that the Commission has a duty of not only being alive to its responsibility but also ensuring that staff members are diligent, responsive and dedicated to their duties. The ACTU, he noted, will be a veritable tool in the achievement of this vision if allowed to effectively discharge its functions.

He particularly commended the NCC Director-General for his initiative and support for the inauguration.

The ICPC Chairman represented by the Acting Director, System Study and Review Department, Mr. Olusegun Adigun, fsi, stated that “it is hoped that with this inauguration, the Unit will be empowered to deliver on its mandate which includes periodic sensitisation of staff on and against corruption; examination of systems, processes and procedures that are prone to corruption and proffering solutions; developing and reviewing code of ethics for staff and ensuring compliance with same; monitoring budget implementation of the Commission; coordinating the deployment of the Ethics and Integrity Scorecard (EICS) and undertaking preliminary investigations into complaints/reports received, amongst others’’.

DG-NCC, Dr. John O. Asein, represented by Director, Operations, Mr. Emeka Ogbonna in his address, thanked the ICPC for inaugurating officials of the NCC ACTU while lauding them for the uphill task of carrying out its mandate to ensure a corrupt free society.

“We know you take a lot of risk fighting corruption considering the enormity of what goes on in this country, it is not an easy task as you continue working for the betterment of the country. We appreciate and encourage you to continue in that part believing that together we can get things better’’ the DG added’’.

He informed that the Commission painstakingly took time to select the staff members inaugurated with the belief that they are the best for the assignment and will work in collaboration with the ICPC in ensuring a corrupt free and transparent copyright system.

Taking the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ the NCC ACTU Members pledged their commitment to display high levels of personal integrity, transparency and accountability in their undertakings, to take all necessary steps to curb corrupt practices and mobilise others to join the crusade against corruption.

In his post-inaugural speech, the Unit Chairman, Mr. Collins Nweke on behalf of the Unit members expressed gratitude to the Management of the Commission for the trust and confidence reposed on the newly inaugurated members and pledged to work as a team to uphold the value of integrity, transparency, honesty and accountability.

While expressing the determination of the team to deliver on their assignment, he called for support to overcome some of the challenges that will emanate in the course of the assignment.

He equally thanked ICPC for entrusting the team with the mandate and promised to live up to the demands of the national assignment.

Meta has announced the recipients of the 2023 Llama Impact Grants and the Llama Impact Innovation Awards.

Launched in October 2023, the programme is designed to support innovative use cases of Llama 2 and Llama 3 that address pressing social issues. With over 800 submissions from organisations in more than 90 countries, the program highlights innovative solutions leveraging Llama models to address major challenges in education and the environment, as well as technological innovation.

Llama Impact Grants

As one of the Llama Impact Grants winners, Digital Green, in partnership with One Acre Fund, will receive $500,000 USD. The runner-up, Jacaranda Health, will receive $300,000 USD to support their project. The projects include:

Advising Farmers in Underserved Areas: Digital Green’s Farmer Chat project aims to develop a multilingual AI chatbot that provides customised, on-demand agricultural advisory services to small-scale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Llama will be fine-tuned on a vast repository of agricultural data to adapt the model to the specific needs and contexts of different regions.

Llama’s conversational capabilities will then be used to provide comprehensive and practical responses in a variety of languages including Hindi, Swahili, and Kikuyu.

Runners Up and Impact Innovation Awardees: Jacaranda Health aims to expand its digital health tool, PROMPTS, which uses SMS behavioral nudges and an AI-enabled clinical helpdesk to empower new and expecting mothers across Kenya, Ghana, and Eswatini to seek and connect with the right care at the right time.

The goal is to make PROMPTS the go-to resource for personalised maternal and newborn health support across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Llama Impact Innovation Awards

In addition to the Llama Impact Grants, Meta also announced the recipients of the Llama Impact Innovation Awards. Award winners will receive up to $35,000 USD, including mentorship, partnership opportunities and ad credits, to further their innovative work with Llama. The award recipients include:

HelpMum, which has developed an innovative chatbot service that delivers accurate and timely information on vaccination and immunisation. Leveraging Llama 3’s advanced language processing capabilities, HelpMum created Vax-Llamamodel—an AI-driven, open-source model designed to provide reliable vaccination information. This open-source model can be integrated into HelpMum’s chatbot service and adopted/used by healthcare organisations worldwide.

Tanzania AI Community’s chatbot Twiga which provides teachers with a virtual assistant for generating exams, lesson notes and course materials tailored to the Tanzanian curriculum via WhatsApp. Twiga uses Llama 3 to generate contextualised educational content to address the shortage of quality resources and the high workload of teachers in Tanzania.

It uses Llama 3 70B in its RAG pipeline to generate high-quality educational exercises and Llama 3 7B for smaller tasks like efficient query pre-processing and data extraction.

Flow Informatics’ phosoAI project aims to address food insecurity in Malawi by enhancing a WhatsApp-based chatbot that provides people with real-time information on food prices, availability, and agricultural practices, particularly in rural and urban areas.

The chatbot uses Llama 3 to provide real-time information to users in Chichewa. It also allows for voice commands to improve accessibility in low-literacy areas.

Meta is deeply committed to open-source AI and believes that expanding access will drive meaningful global progress. Applications for the Llama 3.1 Impact Grants are now open until November 22, 2024.