Health
50,000 Women Die of Maternal Causes Annually in Nigeria- Official
Dr Kayode Afolabi, the Director and Head of the Reproductive Health, Federal Ministry of Health, on Thursday said that no fewer than 50,000 women die annually in Nigeria due to maternal causes.
Afolabi made this assertion at an Orientation/Data Quality Assessment meeting with family health stakeholders on National Self-Care/ Self Injection Guidelines in Akure.
He said that the statistics generated from the National Demographic Health Survey report connotes that seven women die every one hour from maternal health causes.
The reproductive health expert said that these deaths were avoidable, hence the need for the self-care initiative in the country’s health system.
The director stated that family planning still remained the preventive method to reduce maternal mortality, stressing that unplanned pregnancies were usually characterised by risk and could lead to death.
Afolabi said that self-care guideline was about individuals and families protecting their health and accessing healthcare without delay.
He said that the initiative targeted everyone, but used maternal health as entry point.
“Self-care is an innovative method to support universal health coverage and we are using reproductive maternal health as an entry into self-care in Nigeria.
“It is putting us in charge of our health, to be more responsible to our health and therefore promote it.
“We believe that this will improve our health system especially the most vulnerable, women and children,” he said.
Afolabi commended the Ondo state government for its readiness to collaborate with the Federal Ministry of Health in achieving the goals of the initiative.
According to him, Ondo State is the 13th state to have accepted to implement the initiative.
Mrs Folukemi Aladenola, Permanent Secretary, state Ministry of Health, commended the initiative.
She added that the initiative would be very beneficial to women especially because they would be able to take care of themselves by embracing family planning.
“Now, women will be taught and trained on how to do it for themselves and they can take responsibility for their own health,” the permanent secretary said.
Aladenola, represented by Mrs Alice Ogundele, Director of Nursing Services, Ondo State Ministry of Health, urged participants to make best use of what would be passed across to them by the facilitators.
According to her, this will enable them to train their clients in different local government areas”.
In his remarks, Dr Adewole Adefalu, the Country Coordinator of John Snow Incorporated, explained that the organisation was supporting the Federal Ministry of Health in the initiative.
Adefalu noted that self-care guideline would stop women and girls from avoidable deaths from unwanted pregnancies.
“These are our sisters and neighbours. These deaths are unnecessary because there are remedies to use.
“Self-care is one of those innovations to reduce unnecessary deaths”, he said.
The country coordinator said that self-care offers individuals the opportunity to take ownership for their health and empower them to use simple measures of addressing health challenges.
“ They are not depending totally on health facilities. When trained, they can go home and use it and achieve family planning desired goals.
“It gives women optimal access to methods that can help their health,” Adefalu stated.
Mrs Jumoke Awosika, a nurse and one of the participants, said that the initiative was a good one for drastic reduction of maternal mortality, adding that it would be accessible and free.( NAN)
Hundreds of millions of children and adolescents around the world face daily violence in their homes, schools, and elsewhere which could have lifelong consequences.The World Health Organisation (WHO) said this on Thursday.The violence includes being hit by family members, being bullied at school, as well as physical, emotional, and sexual violence, WHO said.
In most cases, violence occurs behind closed doors. More than half of those aged two to 17 or more than a billion minors in total experience violence each year according to the WHO. In three out of five children and adolescents, it is physical violence at home, with one in five girls and one in seven boys experiencing sexual violence.Between a quarter and half of minors are affected by bullying according to the information provided.Only half of the children reportedly talk about their experiences of violence and less than 10 per cent receive help.Lifelong consequences could include depression and anxiety disorders, or tobacco and drug use.As a result, many children do not reach their learning potential in school.Against the backdrop of being highly preventable, violence remains a horrific day-to-day reality for millions of children around the world leaving scars that span generations,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general.The UN’s first conference on violence against children opened in Bogota, Columbia on Thursday.At the two-day conference, more than 100 countries pledged to find ways to better support overwhelmed parents and introduce school programmes against bullying and for healthy social behaviour.They also pledged to raise the minimum age for marriage.Some countries wish to generally ban children from being hit at school or home. (dpa/NAN)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has listed 17 bacteria, viruses and parasites that regularly cause disease as top priorities for new vaccine development.WHO, in a study published on Tuesday, reconfirmed long-standing priorities for vaccine research and development (R&D), including for HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis – three diseases that collectively take nearly 2.
5 million lives yearly. The study is the first global effort to systematically prioritise endemic pathogens based on their regional and global health impact. Attention is also given to pathogens such as Group A streptococcus, which causes severe infections and contributes to 280,000 deaths from rheumatic heart disease, mainly in lower-income countries.Another new priority is Klebsiella pneumoniae — a bacteria that was associated with 790,000 deaths in 2019 and is responsible for 40 per cent of neonatal deaths due to blood infection (sepsis) in low-income countries.The new study supports the goal of ensuring that everyone, everywhere, can benefit from vaccines that protect against serious diseases.It aims to shift the focus in vaccine development away from commercial returns towards regional and global health needs, WHO’s Dr Mateusz Hasso-Agopsowicz, who works in vaccine research, said in a statement.He explained that in the past, vaccine R&D typically was influenced by profitability.“As a result, diseases that severely affect low-income regions received little attention.“We hope this represents a critical shift where we want to change the focus from commercial perspective profitability of new vaccines towards the actual health burden so that the new vaccine research and development is driven by health burden and not just commercial opportunities,” he said.To carry out the study, WHO asked international and regional experts what they think is important when prioritising pathogens for vaccines R&D.Criteria included deaths, disease and socioeconomic impact, or antimicrobial resistance.“We had asked experts that have expertise in pathogen epidemiology, clinicians, paediatricians, vaccine experts from all of the WHO regions, to ensure that the list and the results that we produce really reflect the needs of diverse populations worldwide,” Hasso-Agopsowicz said.Analysis of those preferences, combined with regional data for each pathogen, resulted in the top 10 priority pathogens for each of WHO’s six regions globally.The regional lists were then consolidated to form the global list, resulting in the 17 priority endemic pathogens for which new vaccines are urgently needed.To advance vaccine R&D, WHO has categorised each pathogen based on the stage of vaccine development and the technical challenges involved in creating effective vaccines.Hasso-Agopsowicz said the study is expected to guide future vaccine R&D investments, including funders, researchers and vaccine developers, and also policymakers as they “can decide whether to introduce these vaccines into immunisation programmes.” (NAN)
The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan,has suspended the strike it embarked on Oct. 25.The workers resumed work on Friday morning.The seven-day nationwide warning industrial action embarked upon by the unions was to press home their demands ofadjustment of Consolidated Health Salary Structure as was done with the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure sinceJan.
2, 2014 and implementation of consultant cadre for pharmacists in federal health institutions. Others are upward review in the retirement age from 60 to 65 years for health workers and 70 years for consultants, andpayment of outstanding salaries of JOHESU members in professional regulatory councils.The UCH JOHESU Chairman, Mr Oladayo Olabampe, said that the strike was suspended as directed by the national body.He explained that “the suspension followed an MoU signed between JOHESU national leadership and Federal Government.“The Federal Government asked for a maximum of six weeks counting from Oct. 31, to meet our demands.“Based on the MoU signed, the JOHESU National Executive Council met and resolved that the strike be suspended on Fridaynationwide.”According to him, JOHESU UCH is obeying the order, and workers have resumed work.Olabampe said that if the demands were not met after the six weeks, they would embark on an indefinite strike. (NAN)
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