Frontpage News (3249)
Kenya’s ministry of health on Thursday launched a new drug and self-testing kit to aid HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment interventions.
Director of Medical Services in the Ministry of Health Jackson Kioko said Kenya was the second African country after South Africa to roll out the new HIV pill and self-testing kit as efforts to eliminate the disease gathers steam. “Kenya has made significant breakthrough in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases." “The launch of HIV pill and self-testing kit are an addition to the existing arsenal to combat this killer disease,” Kioko said.
The Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, has disclosed that one of the agencies under the ministry may have developed a drug for the treatment of epilepsy. Mr. Onu, made this disclosure at an investment forum organised in New York by his ministry for Nigerians in the United States.
He said one of the agencies under the ministry is working on what could turn out to be a cure for epilepsy. He said the product already passed through various stages of tests and trials and is only awaiting the final trials by the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC.
The country’s health insurance sector is set for reforms, as plans are being made by the National Assembly to repeal the existing National Health Insurance Scheme Act, Cap. N42, LFN 2004, and replace it with the National Health Insurance Commission Act.
Information obtained by our correspondent revealed that the bill, which was sponsored by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Olarewaju Tejuoso, passed second reading last week.
A heart specialist practicing in Westlake,Ohio, USA, Dr. Demola Abiose, has said that most Nigerian cardiologists and doctors in the Diaspora have yet to come due to lack of facilities.
No fewer than 15,000 medical doctors have left Nigeria for overseas in search of greener pastures. A reliable source at the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) told New Telegraph that “over 15,000 doctors have travelled out of Nigeria to developed countries where they are now practising medicine.”
Alcohol consumption was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in a large study of African-American women, indicating that they, like white women, may benefit from limiting alcohol.
The study was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.The author, Dr. Melissa A. Troester, is a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina.
Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio have found a way to cure type 1 diabetes in mice. It is hoped that the novel technique – which boosts insulin secretion in the pancreas – will reach human clinical trials in the next three years.
Study co-author Dr. Bruno Doiron, of the Division of Diabetes, and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. Type 1 diabetes is estimated to affect around 1.25 million children and adults in the United States. Onset of the condition is most common in childhood, but it can arise at any age.
The federal government has disclosed that Nigeria ranks first in high tuberculosis burden in Africa and 4th among 30 countries globally. The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, said efforts were on top gear by the Federal Ministry of Health to achieve the target of providing one machine per local government area across the country in the fight against tuberculosis epidemic.
More than 1,000 people have died in an outbreak of meningitis in Nigeria, the Centre for Disease Control said Thursday, but added that the spread of the disease is slowing.
The outbreak has mostly affected children in Africa’s most populous country. As of May 9, a total of 13,420 suspected cases had been reported in 23 states with 1,069 deaths, giving a fatality ratio of eight percent, the CDC said in a statement.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said identified stigma and discrimination as factors that prevent epilepsy patients from seeking medical treatment.
Adewole said that instead of consulting doctors, relatives often sought unorthodox treatment that is not beneficial to the patient’s recovery. The minister, who was represented by Dr. Olufemi Fasanmade, said this at the inauguration of the Samuel Olafemiwa Oladehin Foundation, an initiative established to campaign against epilepsy.
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The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria has raised concerns over the report that 60 per cent of drugs being sold in the villages are fake. The group raised the alarm at a press briefing to unveil the 2017 PMG-MAN forum themed “improving access to medicines: the imperatives of local manufacturing and effective supply chain management.”
Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr Azeez Adeduntan, says the state government is set to raise a N50 billion endowment fund to overhaul health care delivery in the state. Adeduntan disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)on Wednesday in Ibadan at the take-off of the state’s Free Medical Mission project.
Prof. Modupe Onadeko, a former Reproductive Medicine Consultant at the University College Hospital, (UCH), Ibadan, has said that no fewer than seven out of 10 Nigerians are hypertensive. Onadeko made this disclosure while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Ibadan on the occasion to commemorate the 2017 World Hypertension Day.
According to the consultant, 50 per cent of the affected people are unaware of their condition while the remaining ones do not even bother to seek any medical help.
The Rivers State government has shut down the Churchill Primary Health Centre in the town area of Port Harcourt. It was gathered that a three weeks old baby got missing last week after being administered immunization in the health centre.
News on the streets of Churchill area has it that the three weeks old baby who was reportedly missing was later found dead three days after, on the corpse of an unknown woman.
