Frontpage News (3256)
Over 10m children in Nigeria, 6 other countries risk acute malnutrition in 2021 -UNICEF
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An estimated 10.4 million children in seven countries, including Nigeria, will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, the UN Children’s Fund said in a statement on Wednesday.
“As 2021 approaches, UNICEF is deeply concerned for the health and well-being of 10.4 million children projected to suffer from acute malnutrition next year in those countries,” the statement said, citing the affected countries as Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says deaths from COVID-19 in the African continent is now 64,760. The agency also disclosed that there are now 2,727,345 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Africa as of 31 December.
Africa CDC disclosed this in via a tweet on its official Twitter handle @AfricaCDC on Friday. According to the agency, 2,279,397 COVID-19 patients have recovered from the disease in Africa.
Investigate missing N3.8bn in health ministry, NAFDAC, others, SERAP urges Buhari
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The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, has urged the presidency to probe allegations that N3.8bn public funds meant for the Federal Ministry of Health, teaching hospitals, medical centres, and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, are “missing, mismanaged, diverted or stolen.”
SERAP specifically urged the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and other appropriate anti-corruption agencies, to investigate the claims, which were documented in Part 1 of the 2018 audited report released last week by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.
Lagos restates commitment to curbing neonatal, infant mortality
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The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi says the state government is committed to building healthcare structures that will help improve neonatal and infant care. Abayomi stated this on Friday during a symbolic event organised by the health ministry to welcome the first babies of the year in four state-owned health facilities.
According to the commissioner, the government will also continue to implement programmes that will help reduce neonatal and infant mortality and promote safe motherhood.
COVID-19 vaccine insufficient for protection from virus -Immunologist
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As Nigeria prepares to receive its first consignment of COVID-19 vaccines, two scientists have cautioned the Federal Government against the proposed mass vaccination. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, in December 2020 revealed that the Federal Government had planned to acquire vaccines worth N400bn.
Ehanire had said that the N400bn would be able to vaccinate 70 percent of Nigeria’s 200 million population. Nigeria had 88,587 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,294 deaths as of Saturday.
Your fertility may drop if you’re taking certain medicines
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The medications that you take can affect your fertility. Your fertility may actually drop if you’re taking certain medicines.
When you are planning a family, it is essential to beware of the kind of medications and drugs that you take because they could have adverse effects on your fertility. You may already know that things like Sexually Transmitted Infections, fibroids, excessive weight, and thyroid conditions can all impact on conception.
COVID-19: Healthcare workers’ lives at risk, NMA cries out
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The Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos branch, says the lives of healthcare workers are being put on the line as people shun COVID-19 protocols. The NMA says the care-free or nonchalant attitude of the Nigerian public towards the COVID-19 protocols is largely responsible for the second wave of the pandemic.
It says it will not relent in its collective resolve to ensure a robust health care delivery as critical partners and improvement in its strategies to win the fight against COVID-19. The NMA chairman, Dr. Adetunji Adenekan, made this known in the association’s New Year message on Friday in Lagos.
Do you care about the state of healthcare and the environment in Nigeria? Are you interested in starting your own Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)? Or are you heading an existing organization and need assistance to successfully run your organization and attract funding for your projects?More research needed on why symptoms linger among COVID-19 survivors -WHO
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The World Health Organisation says it is concerned about the increasing cases of post-intensive care syndrome among recovered COVID-19 patients, noting that there is now a need for more studies to better understand the reason for protracted symptoms in many recovered patients.
According to the United States National Institute of Health, post-intensive care syndrome in COVID-19 patients is often characterised by a conglomeration of symptoms involving physical strength deficits, cognitive decline, and mental health disturbances.
Excessive antibiotics use fuelling antimicrobial resistance –Physicians
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Health professionals have expressed concerns at the rate of antibiotics consumption by Nigerians, noting that excessive consumption of the drug is contributing to the increasing incidence of antimicrobial resistance in the country.
According to the World Health Organisation, antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.
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Too early to know if COVID-19 vaccines will provide long-term protection, says WHO
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The World Health Organisation says it is too early to know if COVID-19 vaccines can provide long-term protection from the virus. Globally, the novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,843,631 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 11:00 GMT on Monday.
At least 85,051,970 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 54,313,600 are now considered recovered. These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and excludes later re-evaluations by statistical organisations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has ruled out the possibility of conducting a local clinical trial on the proposed N400bn vaccines before administering them on Nigerians.
The agency said since the World Health Organisation had approved the vaccines there might not be need to conduct another clinical trial on the vaccines. It, however, said it would subject vaccines, which the Federal Government may likely spend N400bn to procure, to proper revalidation before administering them on Nigerians.
A study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, suggests that widely-available mouthwashes can kill coronavirus within 30 seconds. The researchers say they discovered this during an experiment within 30 seconds of exposing the virus to the mouthwash in a laboratory.
The study, carried out by Cardiff University researchers, tested some widely-available mouthwashes to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, using a protocol capable of detecting ‘a 5-log10 reduction in infectivity.’ The researchers, led by Richard J. Stanton, created conditions that mimicked the back of the nose and throat.
A Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Dr. Charles Umeh, has advised that anyone going for a child’s paternity test should consider seeing a psychologist for counselling first.
Dr. Umeh said the truth as to a child’s biological parentage may be comforting or devastating and it is important to see a psychologist ahead of the exercise to prepare one’s mind on the possible outcome of the test. Speaking in an interview with our correspondent, Umeh said, “Hearing that the child you consider to be yours is not yours can be devastating psychologically, emotionally and physically.
