Punch, 31 January 2017
Jos communities reject polio vaccine, want food instead

Some communities in Jos North Local Government of Plateau have refused to participate in the ongoing immunisation exercise against polio, citing hunger as their reason. “The communities have shunned entreaties by the immunisation officers; they say the vaccine should be replaced with food,” Mrs. Hannatu Davat, a local immunisation officer, told the News Agency of Nigeria, in Jos on Monday. The immunisation exercise, which began on January 28, is co-sponsored by the local government and the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and the Nigerian Rotary Club. The four-day exercise, targeted at children below five years, was meant to vaccinate children against polio and other killer diseases, including hepatitis, measles, yellow fever and tetanus. Davat said the parents, who rejected the vaccine, asked government to rather work toward slashing the prices of food items. She said that other residents, who refused to participate, claimed that they had collected too many rounds of the vaccination, while others described the vaccines as “’western medicine”.  

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The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said that he was not aware of a cure for HIV/AIDS being reported by the majority of the Nigerian media (not The PUNCH). The minister had reacted to the not-so-new claims of finding a cure for HIV being made by a Professor of Virology at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike in Abia State, Maduike Ezeibe. Contrary to media interpretation of his claims, Ezeibe said he had only found a “potentiate” for possible manufacturing of HIV drugs. As reported by the media, the professor had said, “The medicine had been used to “potentiate Ampicilin, Chloroquine, Piperazine and Sulphadimidin, among others… “Local and international pharmaceutical companies would find the product as a veritable raw material…” Technically and as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary, a “potentiate” is used to augment the activity of (as a drug) synergistically. It is used to increase the power, effect, or likelihood of (something, especially a drug or physiological reaction). And, as explained by Ezeibe himself, his current product is a “raw material” for HIV drugs if, as he also said, it is “approved by relevant authorities.” 

TO discourage medical tourism, especially by the political leaders, House of Representatives is considering raising the budget for the State House Hospital to upgrade it to world standard. The House also dismissed speculations that the hospital was a shadow of itself. Chairman, House Committee on Special Duties, Nasiru Daura, who led the members of House Committee on Special Duties on oversight function at the State House made the remarks after inspecting the MRI and CT scans suites of the State House Hospital, Asokoro, Abuja, yesterday. This came as the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Mr. Jalal Arabi said that all the allocations for recurrent expenditure had been received up to the month of December, adding that out of N18.1 billion which is the total budget of the State House, only “N5,196,581,458.64 was released to date amounting to 47 percent of the amount appropriated.” Speaking to State House Correspondents after the inspection, Daura said they will make recommendations to the Appropriations Committee to jerk up the budget of the seat of power, especially as it affected the hospital.  

Some private hospital owners in Nigeria have indicated readiness to fully participate in the National Health Insurance Scheme which hitherto was considered unprofitable for them. A major condition to join the NHIS is predicated on implementation of the National Health Act which they say will attract more participation from private hospitals. “The Act has been signed into law but not yet implemented by the Federal Government,”  Moses Ayibiowu, National coordinator, Institute for Health Insurance and Manage care of Nigeria, told BusinessDay. Also, Nike Olaniba, immediate Past President of Healthcare Providers Association of Nigeria and Olumide Akintayo, a former president of the Pharmaceutical Association of Nigeria (PAN) who spoke with Business Day recently at the annual general meeting of the Health Care providers Association  expressed similar sentiments. According to Olaniba,“We are advocating that government should revisit that act and make health insurance compulsory to all citizens. That is what is available in other countries that can achieve 90 and even 100 percent of healthcare coverage,”

The Lagos State Government through its Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency has sealed the Empire Medical Centre located at 10, Soyebo Street, Ikorodu and arrested the proprietor of the facility, Onumoh Eleazer, for offences bordering on quackery. The State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, disclosed this in Lagos. Idris noted that the closure of the facility is coming on the heels of similar monitoring and closure exercise being carried out by the agency in recent times to regulate and sanitise the operations of health facilities within the State and ensure that quackery is totally eradicated in the health sector. Speaking on the same issue, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Primary Health Care, Dr. Olufemi Onanuga, explained that the Ministry of Health having received reports of quackery about the facility from concerned and well-meaning citizens carried out a thorough investigation, which indicated that the proprietor in charge of the facility performs surgical procedures on innocent and unsuspecting patients without a certificate and practicing licence. Onanuga disclosed that the culprit, Onumoh Eleazer, had recently performed surgical operations on three out of the seven patients admitted in his facility before HEFAMAA arrested him and shut down the facility, stressing that all patients found there have been transferred to General Hospital, Ikorodu for proper management.  

As the world marks World Cancer Day, it forces us to focus again on the challenge of prevention, detection and treatment of cancer in Nigeria. Most families in Nigeria have been confronted with cancer’s devastating diagnosis, and the opportunities for management are hardly better than they were 30 years ago. This year’s World Cancer day continues the multi-pronged campaign WeCanICan, which highlights the need for cancer initiatives to focus on both community and individual interventions. In a recent report Nigeria was said to have contributed the most to cancer prevalence numbers in Africa with 102,000 reported new cases in the year of 2012. The report also shows that just over 10 percent of Nigerians are at the risk of getting cancer before they get to the age of 75. A news article pointed out that in Nigeria the highest burden of cancers fall on women. The article quoted Professor Aderemi Ajekigbe of Radiotherapy and Oncology at the College of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). Ajekigbe noted at the inaugural lecture of the University of Lagos that “women are at a higher risk of getting cancer, with more than 40% of cancer cases in Nigeria occurring in females. Topping the list of common cancer cases were breast and cervical cancer.”

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