He spoke in Abuja Monday at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the NPHCDA and the Connected Development (CODE), a civil society organization, to strengthen and foster health sector accountability in the country.

Shuaib said: “This kind of partnership is a giant step towards transparency and openness in the NPHCDA. This MoU signing is an opportunity to openly demonstrate this transparency.  “We welcome this collaboration because it is also an opportunity to hear from people we serve. “It is an opportunity to get feedback on the services that will deliver.”

The Federal Government has set up a committee on health sector reform to look at issues in the sector such as strikes and brain drain, the Chief Medical Director of Federal Medical Centre in Abuja, Prof. Saad Ahmed, has said.

Ahmed described brain drain in the sector as a threat to the provision of healthcare services to the public.  According to him, the committee is already calling for memoranda from the public to help in its assignment. Ahmed spoke in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Friday.

The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a human rights organization under the aegis of Connected Development to strengthen and foster health sector accountability in Nigeria.

The human rights organization said its investigation having tracked 90 PHCs in 15 states, revealed that 80 per cent of the PHCs were “substandard and unfit to store, and effectively administer COVID-19 vaccines.”

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency has rejected COVID-19 vaccine doses donated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to Nigeria because the vaccines will expire in less than six months.

The Executive Director, NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja, while presenting a paper on “Status of COVID-19 Vaccine Roll-Out, Delivery, Uptake, Challenges, and Potential Areas Where Advocacy is Needed”.

A Professor of Neurology, Dr. Ikenna Onwuekwe, has urged physicians and new mothers to pay good attention to babies during childbirth, noting that poor oxygen supply to the brain of a newborn can cause epilepsy.

Onwuekwe also noted that unborn babies whose mothers are infected with rubella – a contagious viral infection can also be exposed to the neurological disorder, adding that babies can be exposed to risk factors while in the womb.

A Federal High Court in Awka, Anambra State has sentenced a middle-aged man, Ogbodo Friday, to seven years imprisonment without an option of a fine for endangering the lives of innocent consumers through the circulation of fake and counterfeited drugs.

Ogbodo was arrested by the Investigation and Enforcement officers of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control at his residence located at 18, Abagana street, Fegge, Onitsha, Anambra State.

A bill seeking to prescribe a jail term of seven years and/or a fine of N500m for officials who spend public funds on foreign medical trips narrowly passed second reading at the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Sponsored by Sergius Ogun (PDP, Edo), the proposed legislation is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to amend the National Health Act, 2014; and for related matters’. Leading the debate on the bill, Ogun noted that the objective of the proposed law was to amend the Act “so as to make provision for sanctions against any public officer, who violates the provisions of the Act, especially Section 46 of the Act”.

A sex therapist, Dr. Charles Umeh, has cautioned men against relying on drugs to initiate an erection, noting that no drug can really help a man to get an erection. According to the expert, drugs that claim to help a man initiate erection are misleading, explaining that based on science drugs cannot help a man initiate an erection but could rather help to sustain and intensify it.

The expert noted that if a man is unable to initiate an erection, using a drug cannot help him in any way to initiate it, stressing that such a person should rather seek medical intervention to ascertain the real cause of his problem.

Neurologists have urged Nigerians living with epilepsy to stop attributing the health condition to witchcraft, noting that the disorder that causes repeated seizures can be treated with medications.

According to the experts, persons living with epilepsy can also live normal healthy lives when properly treated and need not depend on all sorts of spurious supernatural remedies or prayer houses to prevent seizures. The experts noted that contrary to popular beliefs, epilepsy is a neurological condition often caused by neurological infections in children and adults.

Globally, technological innovations have eased communication, movement and impacted the work-life environment so much so that things hitherto perceived as impossible are now easy-to-do.

Amazingly, technology brought diverse discoveries in terms of cures or replacements for human defections or deficiencies. It also aids medical professionals in treatments, diagnoses and research among others.