A major step forward in Africa’s response to the continuing epidemic was taken Thursday when the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) revealed that it had endorsed Morocco’s locally created mpox test.

A “major milestone” for African public health systems, the new real-time PCR test can identify mpox pathogen DNA in tissue, saliva, and blood samples, improving the continent’s capacity to address new health risks.

The Africa CDC announced the clearance on X (previously Twitter), highlighting the validity and effectiveness of Morocco’s mpox test.

The support is in line with the African Union’s overarching goal of enhancing public health self-sufficiency in order to anticipate and effectively address disease risks.

This development follows three months ago when the Africa CDC declared the mpox epidemic to be a public health emergency.

Previously known as monkeypox, mpox is a disease that infects animals and people by intimate personal contact. Symptoms include fever, muscular pains, and characteristic skin lesions.

Alongside the CDC’s work, Abbott Molecular Inc.’s Alinity m MPXV assay, the first mpox diagnostic test, was authorised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last month.

This diagnostic tool provides an additional means of monitoring and managing the virus by identifying mpox from swab samples.

Approximately 1,100 people have died and over 50,000 instances of mpox have been recorded throughout Africa this year, with Central Africa experiencing the highest number of cases and fatalities.

YFormer Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has described the country under incumbent President Bola Tinubu as a “failing state” which is characterized by pervasive corruption, leadership failure, hardship and hunger.

Obasanjo, who made the assertion while delivering a keynote address at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University, New Haven Connecticut, USA, said Nigeria was speedily becoming a bad case under the leadership of President Tinubu whom he referred to as “Emilokan” and “Baba-go-slow”.

The former Head of State, fondly called OBJ, who spoke on the theme ‘Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria”, added that the country was suffering from state capture as a result of the lackluster leadership of the Tinubu-led administration.

He noted that chaos, insecurity6y, conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence, and underdevelopment had become permanent occurrences in this dispensation, leading the country into a failed path.

”As we can see and understand, Nigeria’s situation is bad. The more the immorality and corruption of a nation, the more the nation sinks into chaos, insecurity, conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence, and underdevelopment,” OBJ said.

“That’s the situation mostly in Nigeria in the reign of Baba-go-slow and Emilokan. The failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of the level of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence and all other forms of iniquity. But yes, there is hope.”

The former President also described state capture as “one of the most pervasive forms of corruption, a situation where powerful individuals, institutions, companies, or groups within or outside a country use corruption to shape a nation’s policies, legal environment, and economy, to benefit their private interests.”

“State capture is not always overt and obvious. It can also arise from the more subtle close alignment of interests between specific business and political elites through family ties, friendships, and the intertwined ownership of economic assets.

“What is happening in Nigeria right before our eyes is state capture. The purchase of national assets by political elites and their family members at bargain prices, the allocation of national resources, minerals, land, and even human resources, to local, regional, and international actors. It must be prohibited and prevented through local and international laws.

“Public institutions such as the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and regulatory agencies both at the federal and local levels are subject to capture. As such, state capture can broadly be understood as the disproportionate and unregulated influence of interest groups or decision-making processes, where special interest groups manage to bend state laws, policies, and regulations,” OBJ added.

The former president stressed that Nigeria’s dire situation is evident to “every honest person.”

He further warned that the country is sinking deeper into insecurity, division, and underdevelopment due to widespread corruption, mediocrity, and a lack of accountability.