It may seem like an unusual place to go looking for answers, but the contents of a baby’s first diaper can reveal a lot about a newborn’s future health. In a new study published in Cell Reports Medicine, a team of University of British Columbia researchers says that the composition of a baby’s first poop — a thick,

dark green substance known as meconium — is associated with whether or not a child will develop allergies within their first year of life; with the observation that children with allergies are at the highest risk of also developing asthma.

Civic tech non-profit organization advocating for transparency and accountability in public in Nigeria, BudgIT, says it has uncovered 115 projects allegedly duplicated and allocated to the Ministry of Health in the 2021 budget. A total of 316 duplicitous projects of almost N40bn was allegedly padded into the 2021 budget, according to BudgIT.

The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, did not respond to our correspondent’s inquiry seeking clarifications of the allegation from him. In a Press release tweeted on Tuesday via its verified Twitter handle @BudgITng, the CEO of BudgIT, Gabriel Okeowo, said, “Our investigations into the 2021 budget revealed at least 316 duplicated capital projects worth N39.5bn, with 115 of those duplicated projects occurring in the Ministry of Health.

When people chew drugs that are designed to be swallowed, it not only affects the efficacy of such drugs but also worsens the degree of their side effects, says National President, Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, Dr. Samuel Adekola.

Adekola said that people should take drugs based strictly on instruction by a pharmacist. According to him, chewing or, equally bad, swallowing of drugs without water, affects their dissolution in the stomach as well as their absorption in the small intestine, thereby making them less effective. The pharmacist who disclosed this during an interview with PUNCH HealthWise said that chewing enteric-coated drugs could aggravate their side effects such as ulcers because they are not designed to be chewed.

The Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 has advised Nigerians to disregard a video clip being circulated on various social media platforms as the new guidelines released by the committee. 

The committee said that the guidelines in the trending video were issued over a year ago in April 2020. In the 55-second clip obtained by one of our correspondents, the National Coordinator of the defunct Presidential Task Force on COVID-19,

The African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at the Redeemer’s University Nigeria, Ede, Osun State, says the strain of COVID-19 currently ravaging India has been detected in Osun and Edo states.

The virus is the same as India’s strain, but different in characteristics, says ACEGID researcher, Prof. Christian Hapi. This is even as renowned professor of Virology, Oyewale Tomori,

A healthcare research scientist, Dr. Oladipo Kolawole, says Nigeria should be worried about the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in India, noting that the country must do whatever is necessary to prevent the importation of the Indian variant.

Speaking with PUNCH HealthWise on Tuesday, Kolawole, who is a lecturer at the Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, said Nigeria must step up surveillance activities to ensure that new COVID-19 variants are not imported into the country,

Deworming pregnant women can reduce the risk of neonatal mortality and odds of low birthweight in countries with soil-transmitted helminthiasis, a new study has revealed

The study, jointly carried out by researchers from the Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University, New York, and the World Health Organisation, was published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal. Based on findings from the study, the researchers called for an increased global effort towards the distribution of deworming medicine for pregnant women, noting that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Maternal health experts have decried the rate at which pregnant women wear tight-fitting clothes, especially among young mothers, saying it could have adverse effects on their health and, possible, that of their unborn babies.

Experts say that the womb does not grow out of the pelvis until 12 weeks of pregnancy and most women will still get away with wearing their normal clothes until then.

The global fight against COVID-19 pandemic last week received a boost with the approval of Chinese-made Sinopharm COVID19 vaccine by the World Health Organisation. The approval, experts say, will give more countries access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Describing the approval as a positive development, experts say it would scale up COVID-19 vaccination in the African region, as many African countries have barely moved beyond the starting line.

The Lagos State Government says it is deploying a new vaccination strategy to prevent COVID-19 third wave in the state. The state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi disclosed this during a press briefing on Wednesday. According to Abayomi, Lagos was deploying what he described as “a ring strategy” to ensure the third wave of COVID-19 is prevented in the state.

Explaining what prompted the vaccination strategy, the commissioner said, “Given the small number doses received, the Ministry of Health wishes to deploy some of these vaccines via a ring strategy. “Ring vaccination controls an outbreak by vaccinating and monitoring a ring of people around each infected individual. The idea is to form a buffer of immune individuals to prevent the spread of the disease.”