Frontpage News (3254)
The Federal Ministry of Health has launch comprehensive strategy on cancer control. The document titled “National Cancer Control Plan 2018-2022” provides clear road map on how the government will undertake cancer control efforts in the country in the next five years and more.
Speaking during the launch and dissemination of the document in Abuja, the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole said that the National Cancer Control Plan is in line with government desire to ensure provision of high quality healthcare for all citizens including the most vulnerable populations.
Nigeria has the worst cancer mortality rate in Africa as four out of every five patients die from the ailment, according to recent statistics.
A foremost consultant oncologist and radiotherapist at the University of Nigeria College of Medicine (UNCM) and Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu, Prof. Ifeoma Okoye, who gave the statistics, blamed the high death rate on the low level of awareness, late presentation at hospitals as well as the high cost of screening and treatment.
Activities in teaching hospitals were yesterday paralysed across the country as health workers embarked on a nationwide strike. Admission of patients, medical treatments and surgeries were consequently suspended at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) National Hospital, Abuja, the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Kano and Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH) Nnewi, Anambra State.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of NAUTH, Professor Anthony Igwegbe, urged the workers to provide skeletal services in the interest of humanity, but his entreaties were ignored.
New studies released this week showed that rapid rise of malaria infections and deaths in northern Nigeria and other African countries experiencing conflict and famine threatens the marginal progress made in eliminating the disease.
However, according to the researches presented yesterday in Senegal at the 7th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan African Malaria Conference, new strategies implemented in places like northern Nigeria, the Central African Republic and South Sudan could provide a way forward.
The federal government says it will invoke the ‘no work no pay rule’ rule if the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) persist in their strike, which has crippled health care delivery in parts of the country.
“If this group of health workers persists on continuing this strike, government will be forced to invoke the provisions of the relevant labour laws, especially Section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act”, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment said in a statement Wednesday by its Director of Press, Samuel Olowookere.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its partners have successfully tested releasing sterile mosquitos from drones as part of efforts to use a nuclear technique to suppress the vectors that spread Zika and other diseases.
The IAEA, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has worked with the Swiss-American non-profit group, WeRobotics, for the last year to develop a drone-based mosquito release mechanism.
Wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki, has advocated implementation of Universal Health Care, UHC, for Nigerians, particularly to tackle high rate of maternal deaths.
Mrs Toyin Saraki Saraki made the call during a courtesy visit by the World Health Organisation, WHO, led by the Regional Director, WHO, Matshidiso Moeti, where she said the implementation of UHC should not be delayed anymore following the positive impact it would make on the health of women and children without facing financial hardship irrespective of where they live or who they are.
People living near oil, gas facilities at higher risk of cancer, heart defects
People living near oil and gas facilities along Colorado’s Northern Front Range may be exposed to hazardous air pollutants, including carcinogens like benzene, that could pose health risks above levels deemed acceptable by the United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health, Boulder County Public Health, CU Boulder, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of California Irvine.
The study, led by the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, used ambient air samples to estimate and compare risks for four residential scenarios. They found the lifetime cancer risk of those living within 500 feet of a well eight was times higher than the EPA’s upper level risk threshold.
President Earth’s Microorganisms Organisation (EMO), Lucky Omorogiuwa, has called on the Federal Government to prioritise the availability of the HPV vaccine and cervical screening opportunities especially for women of reproductive age.
Omorogiuwa, in a press release to mark the International HPV Awareness Day campaign, said this was imperative given that HPV accounts for more than 70 per cent of cervical cancer case.
The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) says it has further extended its Strategic Travelers’ Outreach Programme (STOP) to some West African states as one of the approaches aimed at ending HIV and AIDS in 2030.
Dr Sani Aliyu, Director-General, NACA, said in Abuja on Friday that the agency would conduct sensitisation programme as part of STOP on the platform of Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Organisation (ALCO).
More...
Lassa fever: NCDC advises Plateau government to establish emergency center
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has advised the Plateau Government to create an emergency operation centre for the detection and treatment of the disease to reduce its fatality rate.
Mr Tajudeen Arowolo, the Chief Programme Officer and Epidemiologist, NCDC, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos on Friday.
Doctors cure seven adult patients of sickle cell disease using stem cells
Doctors at the University of Illinois Hospital have cured seven adult patients of sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder primarily affecting the black community, using stem cells from donors previously thought to be incompatible, thanks to a new transplant treatment protocol.
The doctors report on the new technique in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. With the new protocol, patients with aggressive sickle cell disease can receive stem cells from family members if only half of their human leukocyte antigen (HLA) markers match. Previously, donors had to be a family member with a full set of matching HLA markers, or a “fully-matched” donor.
The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, has assured Nigerians the government is making efforts to end the strike by the Joints Health Unions (JOHESU) which has crippled government hospitals across the country.
Mr. Adewole gave this assurance on Wednesday while addressing journalists after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja.
The Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFaH) has opened a multi-million naira training centre in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital city.
Named after the late professor of Africa Politics at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Abdulrauf Mustapha, the centre was commissioned on Friday in the Central Business District of the city.
