The Chairman, Board of Directors of Olashore International School, Prince Abimbola Olashore said early detection is crucial to ensuring adequate mental health.

The means to attain the health components of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) received a boost at the 10th annual conference/scientific workshop of the Forum for Local Government Nurses and Midwives (FOLGONM), held at the Adeyemi Bero Hall, Alausa, Ikeja, from 15 to 18 October 2019, as speakers stressed on the need to create an enablement environment at the Primary Healthcare Centres, which will enhance patients access to basic facilities, thereby decreasing morbidity and mortality rates.

In her welcome remarks, the Director of Nursing Services, Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board, Mrs Olusola C. Ayeni, noted that while the key to ensuring the quality of maternal and childcare is a system’s perspective on the provision of care, the major factor in achieving this is the PHC system. Thus, she said there would be continuous misplaced priorities, inefficiencies and a moribund health sector in Nigeria if only secondary and tertiary institutions are equipped to the neglect of the PHC system.

New guidance from WHO, launched ahead of World Cancer Day (4 February), aims to improve the chances of survival for people living with cancer by ensuring that health services can focus on diagnosing and treating the disease earlier.

New WHO figures released this week indicates that each year 8.8 million people die from cancer, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. One problem is that many cancer cases are diagnosed too late. Even in countries with optimal health systems and services, many cancer cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage, when they are harder to treat successfully.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria Young Pharmacists Group (PSN-YPG), Lagos State Chapter is leading the campaign for youth to become champions of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (SDGs).

The group revved up its advocacy during the Lagos PSN-YPG Week opening ceremony themed: Young Pharmacists as Champions of the SDGs 2030, held at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, last Friday.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has said that about 66 percent of Lagos residents cannot pay for quality healthcare as they live below the poverty threshold. He said this percentage of people in the state could not pay for healthcare and could not be captured in the insurance scheme.

Abayomi, who spoke yesterday at a press briefing organized by the state Ministry of Health, said with the health insurance scheme aimed to ensure accessibility and affordability, only 33 percent of people who were well to do could access it.

Meanwhile, stakeholders in mental health advocates have called for the urgent need to establish a national suicide prevention strategy to curb the rising menace, especially among youths in Nigeria.

The stakeholders, including medical professionals, social workers, and non-governmental organizations among others, lamented the rise of suicide rate in the country, which they said could be prevented by putting measures in place to address it. They gave the assertion ahead of the 2019 national conference scheduled to hold on Saturday, 26, at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), with the theme: “Suicide, a Challenge to Developing Country”.

It is good news from the health sector as experts have announced that another strain of wild poliovirus has been eradicated globally. This news was shared by the World Health Organisation in a press statement on Thursday to mark World Polio Day.

The UN health agency said with no case of wild poliovirus type 3 detected anywhere in the world since 2012, the Global Commission for Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication (GCC) has officially declared the strain as globally eradicated.

Funding gaps across the African continent may hinder the achievement of the global target for malaria elimination by 2030, a new survey has said. The survey, Malaria Futures for Africa (MalaFa), is the first systematic attempt in many years to collate expert African views on malaria policy.

It found that countries in Africa are highly unlikely to meet the 2030 deadline in the fight against malaria if considerable changes did not occur in funding and delivery.

The Nigerian government has pledged to release $12 million to end epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other preventable and treatable disease across the globe. The government announced the commitment at the sixth Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) in Lyon, France.

Leaders of countries around the world made commitments through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end these epidemics by 2030.

Three outfits seeking to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, including USAID, Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Nigeria and the Department of Defense have sought the buy-in of the 36 Nigerian state governors for the abolition of user fees by all HIV positive persons in the country.

The proposal was tabled during a visit to the secretariat of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) on Tuesday.