Frontpage News (3249)
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).
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.
Kebbi State, one of the states with the highest rates of new-born mortality (under the age of five) in the country, has been rated as one of the states with the highest rates in the world.
The state records 32,514 deaths of children under the age of 5 annually. Following this, the state has been rated fourth by the United Nations’ International Education Fund (UNICEF) on the index of places with the highest infant mortality rates.
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Nigeria launches its project for regional disease surveillance systems enhancement (REDISSE) to shore up response to epidemics on Friday. The World Bank set up the REDISSE project to cover all West African countries in the wake gaps shown by the 2014 Ebola outbreak in the region. 
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has elected a new president, in the person of Dr Francis Adedayo Faduyile. He was elected on Sunday, 5 May, 2018 at the end of the association’s 58th Annual General Conference and Delegates Meeting held in Abuja.
Dr Faduyile, who hails from Ikoya, in Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State, is an Associate Professor and a Consultant Pathologist at the Lagos State University College of Medicine/Teaching Hospital.
Cholera Outbreaks: Two Million People in Nigeria, Malawi, Others to Be Protected
A spate of cholera outbreaks across Africa has prompted the largest cholera vaccination drive in history, with more than two million people across the continent set to receive oral cholera vaccine (OCV).
The vaccines, funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, were sourced from the global stockpile and are being used to carry out five major campaigns in Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, South Sudan and Nigeria. The campaigns, which will be completed by mid-June, are being implemented by the respective Ministries of Health supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners of the Global Task Force on Cholera Control (GTFCC), and mostly in reaction to recent cholera outbreaks.
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has deplored the on-going strike by the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) and appealed to the Federal Government to honour its agreement with all health workers.
The association urged the Federal Government to be conscious of the existence of relativity as signed in the collective bargaining agreement of 2014 with government, as NMA will not tolerate its desecration.
