Leadership, 7 March 2015 Disturbing Trend of Maternal Deaths in Nigeria
There are disturbing stories of pregnant women in distant villages with no access to healthcare or facilities for delivery. These women either give birth in their homes unattended to, or are hurried off to the nearest town, which may be several miles away in search of maternity clinics or hospitals, and that is, provided they have the right means of transportation. Good roads are also scarce in some of these places. All of these can endanger the life of a mother and her unborn baby and in severe cases, result in death.
Plos Blogs, 12 March 2015 Boko Haram and Africa’s Neglected Tropical Diseases
Today, Boko Haram controls an important area of northeastern Nigeria, but it is also threatening neighboring areas of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Last year I identified this region as one of ten global “hotspots” for NTDs, and indeed some new numbers on NTDs released by the World Health Organization (WHO) confirm this observation. Currently the four nations under threat by Boko Haram account for approximately one third each of the 169 million people at risk for onchocerciasis (river blindness, and the estimated 472 million people who require mass treatment for lymphatic filariasis (LF), elephantiasis, in Africa. Moreover, transmission of Gambian human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) still occurs in Cameroon, Chad, and possibly Niger. I am concerned that the expansion of Boko Haram into West and Central Africa could have important consequences for the spread of the vector-borne NTDs highlighted above.
Leadership, 8 March 2015 State of Primary Health Care Centers in Rural Communities
Health is wealth” is not an understatement and the ultimate goal of primary health care is good health for all. Health care delivery is the fundamental responsibility of any government. Health care system in Nigeria is divided into three categories : Primary ,Secondary and Tertiary .The Tertiary health institutions are operated by the federal government involving teaching hospitals and federal medical centers in the country, the Secondary takes care of state hospitals referred to as general hospitals run by state governments while the last tier which is the primary is operated by the local governments. Primary health care system has a wider coverage and is operated mostly in rural communities. It aims at improving the health status of patients at the grass roots through diagnosis and treatment of common diseases as well as other services as counselling and referrals. Other areas it covers includes health education ,disease prevention and screening. In a nutshell a primary health care center or facility is a small unit which provides a family with the health services other than those which can only be provided in a hospital. Primary health care covers, the primary health care center,the primary health care clinic and the primary health care post.
CNN, 10 March 2015 'Every day, we cried': Out of Ebola, a new Liberia will emerge
As the Ebola outbreak wanes in Liberia, it is easy to imagine the heroes as the myriad of foreign doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and logisticians that have come to support the country in their days of need, and yes, these expatriates have definitely brought to bear much knowledge, expertise and resources on controlling the outbreak. But there is a group of heroes who are unlikely to make any headlines or be celebrated as such. They are the thousands of Liberian citizens that have gone door-to-door asking questions, looking for the ill, offering advice, day after day, after day for months on end. When they do find an ill person who may have Ebola, they begin the painful process of convincing them that it is safer to be an Ebola treatment unit than at home. Often the question that follows is: "What happened to all those that went in before me? What happened to them?"
Daily Independent, 12 March 2015 Alaafia Universal Health Coverage Scheme Debut
The Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBFA), a Nigeria-based non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) dedicated to maternal, newborn and child health has launched an innovative health scheme, the Alaafia Universal Health Coverage Scheme (AUHCS), to expand access to health services in communities. The innovative financing scheme will see the WBFA partner with Hygeia Community Health Care, a Nigerian health insurance provider, and PharmAccess Foundation, an international organisation dedicated to expanding access to affordable health insurance, to fund the insurance premiums for 4800 Nigerians each year. Recipients will include pregnant women, children under five, adolescent girls, people living with HIV and AIDS, and the elderly, with adolescent girls and pregnant women representing 50% of enrolees.
Guardian, 11 March 2015 Lagos Doctors may begin fresh Strike on Monday
Doctors in state-owned hospitals in Lagos are set to down tools yet again, in protest over unpaid outstandings and persistent casualisation of workers in the health sector. The outstanding salaries are for months of May 2012, July, August and September 2014, during which the doctors were on strike. Casualisation of doctors, otherwise called the engagement of locum doctors, followed the suspension of residency training programme in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) three years ago. The doctors, under the aegis of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Lagos branch, in a letter to the state government, dated March 6, 2015, and made available to The Guardian Wednesday, informed governor Babatunde Fashola of the planned strike action beginning from Monday, March 16, 2015.
Daily Post, 12 March 2015 Enugu Psychiatric Hospital Workers protest poor Welfare, issue 21-Day Ultimatum
Workers at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital (FNH), Enugu on Thursday staged a peaceful demonstration demanding for improved welfare and arrears of allowances. The workers under the auspices of Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) marched through the premises of the hospital and ended up at the administrative block housing the offices of the management board and that of the Chief Medical Director (CMD). The protest paralyzed activities in the hospital while it lasted. The protesting health workers, who sang solidarity songs, carried several placards with various inscriptions including; “Pay up our cooperative deductions”, “where is our withheld annual increments”, “Stop all corruption”, “Pay us our teaching allowance”, “A cry for help from Ministry of Health and Presidency”, “Give us promotion arrears”, and “Pay our nurses their uniform allowance”.
Daily Independent, 12 March 2015 Nigeria's doing well with HIV Control, but ... - Camara, UNAIDS Coordinator
BILALI CAMARA is the UNAIDS Country Coordinator in Nigeria, also doubles as the UNAIDS Focal Point for ECOWAS. In this interview with our Correspondent, HASSAN ZAGGI, Camara x-rays the current HIV situation in Nigeria, efforts of the government in the fight the scourge and what UNAIDS is doing to ensure ARVs are produced in Nigeria. He also spokes on many other issues
Daily Independent, 10 March 2015 Finland pledges to Support Nigeria in Combating Diseases
The Finland Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs Pirjo Soumela-Chowdhury, on Monday disclosed the Finnish government’s plan to support the Federal Government in combating Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Suomela-Chowdhury told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that Finnish medical experts were prepared to work closely with Nigeria in the treatment of cardiovascular and cancerous diseases. Finland will soon begin to look at the possibility of cooperating more with Nigeria in the area of health sector development.
Nigeria Health Watch, 10 March 2015 A Health Innovation Challenge for Nigeria's Healthcare Space
Many incubation and innovation platforms in Nigeria target information technology for finance, agriculture and e-commerce, but very few platforms focusing on health innovation/technology in healthcare delivery. While groups in African countries like Malawi, Uganda and Ethiopia have developed locally appropriate health technologies and innovations such as m-Health apps to improve health outcomes, the low application of innovation and technology in healthcare remains a missed opportunity in transforming healthcare delivery in Nigeria. 1 In an attempt to galvanize Nigerians into action in this space, the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria’s Nigeria Health Innovation Marketplace is calling on innovators, techies, academic institutions, private sector companies, businesses, civil society, clinicians, researchers, NGOs and individuals to apply in the $1million Health Innovation Challenge.
EpiAFRIC is a health sector focused consulting group working to improve
population health through expert research and data analytics, project
design and evaluation, health communication, advocacy and training. Our
non-profit arm is Nigeria Health Watch.
