Early marriage and its sad consequences to the girl child and socio-economic development of the nation has been an age-long issue being advocated against in many parts of Nigeria. At the onset of COVID-19, the teeming efforts to curb this issue almost got jeopardized with harsh economic situations in many households due to the lockdown and the willingness to marry off their girls to reduce this burden. Closure of schools and cases of sexual gender based violence also impacted the prevalence of early marriage during the pandemic in Nigeria. We also argue in this commentary that the pandemic has so much impacted on programs aimed at ending early marriage in the nation. Therefore, if serious and concerted efforts are not taken by relevant stakeholders, more girls will be at risk of early marriage and teenage pregnancy with their related health consequences. They will also be left behind in fulfilling their potentials and their aspirations cut off with early marriage, thus sustainable development cannot be achieved.

Pharmacists have a key role to play to advance public health through immunization. Pharmacists are well trained and play a huge role in vaccine production, research and development, safety, pharmacovigilance, storage, logistics and distribution. There is a need for a revised national policy and strategy in Nigeria on vaccination and immunization programs with the involvement of community pharmacies and/or pharmacists. This will help accelerate getting a wider vaccination access coverage, establishing a greater healthcare delivery workforce for societal benefits and demonstrate the full potential of the community pharmacies and the pharmacists’ role in immunization programs.

Background: Many professions undergo continuous training to keep abreast of happenings and current trends. Pharmacy is one of such profession; it achieves this by participating in Mandatory continuing professional development (MCPD). MCPDs come in various forms, including seminars, conference attendance, and reading research journals. Aim: This study sets out to assess and explore pharmacists’ attitudes towards continuing education in Nigeria and investigate the perceived barriers that hinder pharmacists from being involved in continuing education (CE) activities. Methods: A validated questionnaire composed of 19 items was shared online among pharmacists practicing in different settings in Nigeria. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the variables. Results: A total of 586 pharmacists participated in the study. A high percentage (77.8%) of those who completed the questionnaire strongly agreed that life-long learning is a professional responsibility of all pharmacists to increase their knowledge. A fair number of the participants (52.90%) adopted a positive attitude toward CE, while almost a similar percentage (47.10%) of participants displayed poor attitudes. The main barriers identified were the lack of time (49.10%), the cost of (MCPD) programmes (65.90%), and job constraints (64.80%). Conclusion: This study showed that the attitude of Nigerian Pharmacists toward CE is polarised between positive and negative, with several factors impeding their involvement in CE.

There is an urgent need to address the global mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it reached 6.3 million as of July 2022. As such, the experts recommended the mass diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection at an early stage using nanotechnology-based sensitive diagnostic approaches. The development of nanobiosensors for Point-of-Care (POC) sampling of COVID-19 could ensure mass detection without the need for sophisticated laboratories or expert personnel. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques for POC detection was also proposed. In addition, the utilization of various antiviral nanomaterials such as Silver Nanoparticles (AgNPs) for the development of masks for personal protection mitigates viral transmission. Nowadays, nano-assisted vaccines have been approved for emergency use, but their safety and effectiveness in the mutant strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus remain challenging. Methodology: Updated literature was sourced from various research indexing databases such as PubMed, SCOPUS, Science Direct, Research Gate and Google Scholars. Result: We presented the concept of novel nanotechnology researched discovery, including nano-devices, electrochemical biosensing, nano-assisted vaccine, and nanomedicines, for use in recent times, which could be a formidable step for future management of COVID-19.