Mrs Bolanle Ambode, wife of Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, on Thursday urged private medical practitioners in the state to complement government’s efforts in providing quality healthcare to the citizens. She made the call while receiving the executive members of the National Guild of Medical Directors, who visited her in Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the visit was part of the activities marking the 2015 Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the guild.

Ambode said that government alone could not bear the cost of healthcare delivery in the state, remaking that the responsibility required public and private collaboration to drive. ”Private hospitals have been contributing a lot to healthcare delivery in Lagos State and we appreciate your efforts. ”We urge you to do more because healthcare is essential to the growth and development of the state,” she said. 

The government of Ekiti through the State Hospital Management Board (HMB) is making moves to re-position the healthcare system in the state and boosting healthcare delivery. To achieve these, the governor of the state, Ayodele Fayose has directed that medical facilities in the state should be properly equipped and adequately staffed. To this effect, the State Hospital Management Board (HMB) has commenced the process of recruiting no fewer than 100 medical personnel in compliance with the instruction.

The Permanent Secretary (HMB), Dr. Kolawole Aina, who made this known, in Ado- Ekiti, disclosed that the agency had commenced interviewing shortlisted candidates from about 1,000 applicants for the various existing vacancies. Aina said that 20 medical doctors and 50 nurses would be recruited into the public service in the course of the exercise. He listed other cadres to be employed to include pharmacists, health assistants, health information officers, dental technicians, physiotherapist, medical laboratory scientists and image scientists.

According to him, the existing vacancies were consequential upon disengagement of workers from the public service, noting that many workers had retired without corresponding replacement over the years.

Source:Healthnews Nigeria

The Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has reiterated her commitment to improve maternal health and reduce the rate of infant mortality in Nigeria. She made the statement on Thursday in Abuja when Mr Perry Colderwood, the Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria paid her a courtesy visit at the Presidential Villa. She noted that the wife of any leader have the responsibility to assist her husband in various ways since he is busy with state affairs.

She said that this informed her decision to float her pet project, “Future Assured’’ to provide alternative life line for Nigerian women and children. “I decided to come up with a project called “Future Assured’’ to help in reducing maternal and infant mortality rate and support girl-child education. “The project is also to enlighten parents on how to restrain their children from being indoctrinated into social vices. “Monitoring daily activities and control of every child is a unique family affair. “We need to educate women on how to control their children in order to avoid a situation where they would fall victims of indoctrination to social vices inimical to the society,’’ she said.

The Federal Government has allayed fears while debunking rumours of another Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) incidence in Nigeria, following the rumour of a suspected outbreak in Cross River State of a 21 year-old-male student of the University of Calabar.. Speaking to journalists yesterday in Abuja over the rumours of an outbreak, the permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr Linus Awute, stated, “The Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) hereby confirms that there is no Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria, and thus Nigeria remains Ebola- free.

Meanwhile, the victim was said to have been admitted in the casualty ward of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital by the mother and other family members with bleeding, diarrhea, vomiting, skin rashes and mouth lesions. His temperature on admission was 37 degrees centigrade and his vital signs were stable. The parents said that the patient had never travelled outside Calabar. On the basis of the signs and symptoms, a tentative diagnosis of viral hemorrhagic fever, to rule out Lassa fever was made.

World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday announced that Laos has suffered a case of vaccine- derived polio which is a new setback to a global effort to eradicate the crippling disease after the virus resurfaced in Ukraine and Mali. The WHO said an 8-year-old boy died of the disease on September 11, and genetic sequencing suggested the virus strain has been circulating in the area of Bolikhamxay province, which has low immunization rates, for more than two years. There is no cure for polio, which attacks the nervous system and could cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. But a global vaccination campaign has all but beaten the wild polio virus, with only Pakistan and Afghanistan reporting cases of wild polio virus infection this year.

Specialists have warned that vaccine-derived cases – such as this one in Laos and previous ones in Ukraine and Mali – could hamper progress towards global eradication. The WHO stressed that “ending polio for good requires eliminating both wild and vaccine-derived polio.” It added, however, that because of relatively limited travel to and from this area,

The director general, National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Prof John Idoko, has said that Nigeria is at a critical stage of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. According to him, having reached the progress of halting HIV/AIDS transmission to less than 4 per cent in 2010, the country is now on its way to eliminating the scourge. Idoko made these disclosures yesterday in Abuja when he led the management team of the agency on a courtesy visit to the headquarters of LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group.

The NACA DG who solicited partnership with LEADERSHIP Group, explained that at this stage, information going out is very critical with regards to passing the right messages across. He said, “The number of new infections is coming down; the number of people dying from HIV is coming down and one of the big areas we are struggling with, interrupting transmission from HIV positive women to their babies is also coming down. So, we are very grateful to your paper and all the others that have supported us.

Worried that over 40 per cent of Nigeria’s adult population is hypertensive; the Federal Ministry of Health has entered into partnership with Neimeth Pharmaceuticals which sees the price of antihypertensive drugs cut by half. According to the Director of Food and Drug Services at the Ministry, Gloria Chukwumah, “4.5 million Nigerians over the age of 15 are hypertensive. The prevalence is much more in the urban than in the rural areas and it affects 40 per cent of the adult population.”

She stated this yesterday at the inauguration of the FITGAH (Fight the Good Fight Against Hypertension) Partnership Working Committee by the permanent secretary of the Ministry, Mr Linus Awute saying the scope of this partnership which will cut across the urban and rural divide will involve mass screening and isolation and medicine administration at lower cost up to 50 per cent for free. He said the committee will work to bring other organisations into the fight against hypertension to promote efficient healthcare delivery system through rational drug use.

The Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS (NEPWHAN), has said that out of the estimated 3.5 million Nigerians living with HIV/AIDS, only about 700,000 have access to   anti-retroviral treatment, meaning that 2.8 million Nigerians have no access to treatment. It also raised the alarm that these 2.8 million people living with HIV may be on their way to untimely death if the government does not act fast to arrest the situation. This was disclosed yesterday in Abuja by the chairman of NEPWHAN’s board of trustees, Abdulrahman Momodu, at the inauguration of new executives of the association.

He said though the board of trustees, since the establishment of NEPWHAN in 1998 has refrained from making public statements on issues, there were compelling reasons now why the association must speak so as to draw the attention of the government to their plight, whose existence is now being threatened by declining care and support. He said, “it is on this note that we passionately appeal to Mr President to do all within his power to prevent avoidable death.”

UNICEF says not less than 800 of about 1,400 child deaths Nigeria are caused by diarrhoea daily which could be attributed to poor sanitation and inadequate water. This is contained in a statement signed by the Chief of Communication, UNICEF, Ms Doune Porter, on Thursday inAbuja and made available to the News agency of Nigeria (NAN). It said that children at the first month of their lives were very vulnerable to diseases easily transmitted through unwashed hands. "Over 800 of the approximately 1,400 child deaths from diarrhoea each day can be attributed to inadequate water, sanitation or hygiene.

"Infants in the first months of life are particularly vulnerable to diseases transmitted by unwashed hands,” it said. According to the statement, an average of 82 per cent of people washes their hands before eating, while only 53 per cent of people washed their hands with soap after defecation. It also said that only about 14 per cent of people washed their hands with soap after cleaning a child’s faeces which posed a serious public health risk. "Regular hand washing with soap after using toilet, after changing children’s nappies and before eating or handling food saves more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention.