The top management of World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Policy Group (GPG) will hold a week-long meeting in Nigeria for the first time starting from April 10 to 12, 2018.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, disclosed this in statement yesterday by the Director of Media and Public Relations, Ministry of Health, Mrs. Boade Akinola. Adewole said the GPG membership is made up of the Director-General, Deputy Director-General, six Regional Directors and  Executive Director of the WHO Emergencies Programme.

The Federal Government has said no fewer than 21 million people will be vaccinated against yellow fever across the country by the end of 2018 with support from World Health Organisation (WHO), Gavi – the Vaccine Aliliance, UNICEF and other health partners.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, stated this while speaking at the launch of the Eliminate Yellow Fever (EYE) strategy in Abuja on Tuesday. According to him, following the current outbreak of yellow fever in September last year, the high number of suspected cases, confirmed cases, and deaths recorded necessitated the campaign for mass vaccination against the disease.

Nigeria will not graduate from the GAVI intervention funds for the next 10 years as the ‘expiration term’ of the country has been extended to allow the country prepare to take over, the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole has said. The minister made this revelation at the launch of Eliminate Yellow Fever Epidemics (EYE), by the World Health Organisation in Abuja on Tuesday.

Present at the event was the WHO Director General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, Deputy Director–General, six regional directors, and Executive Director of the WHO emergencies programmes and heads of health parastatals in Nigeria.

The Federal Government of Nigeria has expressed regret that currently, 65 million Nigerians were without clean drinkable water while estimated 100 million Nigerians still lacked basic sanitation facilities and 63 million did not have access to improved source of drinking water.

Amb. Samson Itegboje, Nigeria’s Ambassador/Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN who pointed this out at the International Decade for Action tagged: “Water for Sustainable Development” 2028 Held at the UN Headquarters, New York, said the government was making tremendous efforts to eradicate poor sanitation and excessive use of water.

In desperate need of surgery to alleviate the ravages of sickle cell disease and previous medical care that worsened his condition, university student Abiodun Bakare was about to give up hope when he discovered the cost of his surgery would be N18 million (about $50,000).

Bakare, his family and friends had done their research and discovered that a hospital in India could provide him with the care he needed, but the cost of the care and the journey was well beyond his reach.

Nearly 10,000 Chinese patients have received deep brain stimulation surgery since the first China-made brain pacemaker was implanted in a patient’s brain in November 2009.

“Deep brain stimulation surgery has become an important method to treat the patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease at the middle and late stages,” said Li Luming, Director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Neural Control under the Tsinghua University.

The University of Ibadan (UI) on Sunday closed its medical school, directing students to vacate hostels by noon on the same day. The directive is contained in a release signed by the institution’s Registrar, Olujinmi Olukoya, and made available to newsmen in Ibadan.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the release was, however, neither dated nor written on the official letterhead of the university.

The World Health Organisation, Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, has advised Nigeria to speed up the investment of one per cent of its Consolidation Funds intended for basic health provision.

Mr Ghebreyesus gave this advice at the second THISDAY media parley in Abuja on Thursday.

Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has urged the World Health Organisation to make Nigeria one of the priority countries on its list.

According to a press statement from WHO, Mr Osinbajo made the request when he received in audience the Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, Regional Directors and other Global Policy Group members of WHO at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday in Abuja.