Health
NTDs: FCT Health Authorities urge Gwagwalada Communities to Promote Personal Hygiene
The FCT Department of Public Health, Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) unit, has advised residents of Gwagwalada community to begin to promote personal and environmental hygiene.
Dr Eunice Ogundipe, Coordinator, NTDs unit, FCT Public Health, gave the advice during an outreach for the treatment of Schistosomiasis, a disease among the NTDs.
Reports says that the community outreach was jointly carried out by Parasitology and Public Health Society of Nigeria (PPSN) and the Federal Ministry of Health.
Other diseases of NTDswhich prompted the visit by the officials at the community are soil transmitted helminthiasis, onchocerciasis (River blindness) and lymphatic filariasis.
Ogundipe, however, said that Gwagwalada town was one of the endemic towns in the FCT having high cases of schistosomiasis, soil transmitted helminthiasis which could simply be described as intestinal worms.
She said that the town had a high burden for those diseases, adding that the department was also in the town to commemorate the 5th year anniversary of World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the FCT.
“We deem it fit to come to Gwagwalada to treat community members in order to reduce the load of this intestinal worms.
“There is need for this people to promote personal and environmental hygiene; everybody is aware now that NTDs strives in an unhygienic environment, a poverty accounted environment.
“NTDs is associated with a community with poor sanitation, poorly built houses, anywhere that there is lack of good water sources, NTDs strives in all these areas.
“There is need for the residents of this community to pay attention to their environmental and personal hygiene in order to lift the burden of NTDs,” she stressed.
The theme for the 2024 NTDs day says: “We should unite, act to eliminate NTDs.”
She added that the only way to unite, act and eliminate this diseases was by promotion of personal and environmental hygiene.
Dr Yoila Malann, Chairman, State Technical Advisory Committee (STACOM) for NTDs, stated that NTDs infections diseases were more than 20 in number.
Malann, who is a Professor of Parasitology, University of Abuja, said the officials were in Gwagwalada community to create awareness about those diseases and to mobilise residents to have the knowledge of their prevention.
“Knowledge is key, knowledge is power as it is often said, if the people are mobilised and they know it, there are certain actions they will take that will help in curtailing these diseases and their infection.
“If they are infected, there is a cure for it but beyond that, prevention is better than cure; if they know that these diseases are preventable, it becomes very easy for them to be infected.
“What we are trying to say is that personal hygiene is crucial, taking care of their personal hygiene, using clean toilet, using water to wash their hands effectively before eating and doing some activities will help in curtailing NTDs infection.
“In FCT, we do disease mapping, we go to communities, verifiy, examine what are the prevailing diseases among the NTDs infection that are there.
“In FCT we have four of these diseases that are key to our management which we have also given them the knowledge and medicine,” he said.
He also noted that “some community members go to water bodies for different activities; some for swimming, some for bathing, some for fishing, and some for sand harvesting which make them to be prone to NTDs infectious diseases.
Dr Comfort Olanrewaju, Department of Biological Science, University of Abuja, noted that NTDs were public health challenges and advised the residents of Gwagwalada to be aware of the diseases and take precautionary measures against them.
Olanrewaju who is the FCT Chapter Coordinator of PPSN, stated that the society always researched and looked around for areas where there were some parasites or some diseases of public health concerns.
She said that the society was always taking further steps to inform people about the ways to take, to guard against the diseases.
Alhaji Mohammed Lakayi, the District Head of Gwagwalada, appreciated the officials for the outreach.
Lakayi, who represented the Agoma of Gwagwalada, said the community heads would take further steps to educate the people on hygiene. (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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