Doctors on Call Health Support Initiative has launched an electronic medical application to fast-track emergency services in the country.

Speaking during the launch of the application yesterday in Abuja, Chief Executive Officer of the organization, Dr Adejobi Adeloye said the application called Amba is the country’s first emergency coordinating system aimed at reducing maternal mortality, reducing downtime in ambulance and fire services response, and improving emergency response gap.

A cataract is a clouding of the eye’s natural lens, which lies behind the iris and the pupil. Cataracts are the most common cause of vision loss in people over age 40 and are the principal cause of blindness in the world. In fact, there are more cases of cataracts worldwide than there are of glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy combined, according to Prevent Blindness America (PBA).

Today, cataracts affect more than 22 million Americans age 40 and older. And as the U.S. population ages, more than 30 million Americans are expected to have cataracts by the year 2020, PBA says.

The Maternal and New Child Health (MNCH2), a UK-DFID funded programme, has claimed that Nigeria loses about 700 Nigerian children daily as a result of different preventable health challenges.

Ashiru Hamza, the Advocacy and Accountability Advisor of the organisation, disclosed this while presenting the evidence at an Editorial Roundtable meeting in Kaduna on Thursday.

The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) has urged parents, religious leaders, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders to stop drug abuse in the society by sensitising Nigerians on its inherent dangers.

Mr Elijah Mohammed, the Registrar of PCN, gave the task in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja on the sideline of an awareness campaign organised by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN).

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, has pledged to remain committed and increase the aid given by France to less developed countries, especially in Africa, in order to assist with women development in the continent.

Mr Macron, speaking at the goalkeepers’ event in New York on Wednesday, said France would be increasing its grants from $10 billion to $15 billion from 2020 to 2030.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on countries surrounding the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to scale up efforts to prevent the spread of Ebola through their borders. The call followed a sudden setback in containing the disease and accessing some Ebola patients in the DRC.

In a statement on its website on Wednesday, WHO said the response to the outbreak of Ebola in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the DRC was at a critical juncture of being lost, due to factors ranging from insecurity and mistrust.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Adewale Oke, has decried the low number of trained rheumatologists to treat musculoskeletal diseases in Nigeria.

Mr Oke, a professor, made the assertion at the West African Rheumatology Conference organised by the Nigerian Society of Rheumatology (NSR) in LASUTH, Ikeja on Monday.

More than 200 delegates, including dealmakers, entrepreneurs and investors, will meet at the Nutrition Africa Investor Forum (NAIF) to discuss how to position nutrition as a promising new investment area. The meeting holding in Nairobi on October 16-17 – World Food Day – is to explore partnerships, access business finance and enter new markets.

Over these two days, selected Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) from across Africa will have opportunities to participate in the first ever Scaling Up Nutrition Pitch Competition as well as The Nutrition Dealroom to meet venture capitalists and business financiers to improve their access to finance.