Frontpage News (3259)
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.
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.
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Scientists have made a major step forward to creating life in the laboratory without using sperm or eggs. Two different kinds of stem cells were combined in a dish – and they grew into an early form of embryo.
Creating embryos from stem cells would create an unlimited supply of identical embryos, which would be useful for medical research. The development is hoped to shed light on one of the biggest causes of infertility – embryos failing to implant in the womb.
The Congo and World Health Organisation (WHO) have hit the outbreak of Ebola with quick response to contain the deadly disease. “I think with this rapid response we will be able to contain it,” WHO emergencies director for Africa, Ibrahima Soce Fall, told the Media on Wednesday. “Very clearly” the U.N. agency learned its lesson from the crisis, he added.
Ebola is endemic to Congo, a vast country whose eastern Ebola river gave the deadly virus its name when it was discovered there in the 1970s.
In an attempt to keep Nigerians safe from Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday directed the Federal Ministry of Health to step up surveillance activities in the country.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, stated this when he briefed State House correspondents at the end of the council’s meeting chaired by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The minister said the council’s directive followed the reported reemergence of the disease in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Following the directive from the national body of the Joint Health Staff Union of Nigeria (JOHESU) that their counterparts in the states of the federation should embark on an indefinite strike, health activities have been paralyzed in Oyo State.
Health workers in the state had on Wednesday withdrew their services, leaving skeletal and emergency work to the medical doctors. As early as 7.00 on Thursday morning, leaders of the union had chased out their colleagues out of the Oyo State General Hospital, Yemetu, Ibadan, as well as other branches, thereby forcing many patients who had come for medical attention to disperse, while many were stranded, lamenting the ugly development.
