In the news

Silent rage of maternal sepsis puts women’s lives at risk

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

When Helen discovered  she was pregnant, she was excited to welcome a new life, but her hopes took a crashing turn when she had a miscarriage weeks later.
 
After all the tests, she continued to bleed, and was admitted to the ICU for post partum sepsis along with an infection in her uterus.
 
“I was really sick and needed to have three  D&Cs done and it took a while for me to overcome the shock of sepsis. I was one of the lucky ones who made it but I’m still losing  weight,” she told Good Health Weekly.
 

Govt launches three-year plan on family health

Saturday, January 6, 2018

A family planning costed implementation plan for 2016 to 2018 to provide direction for a sustainable family planning programme with detailed activities, strategies, goals and indicators to address all components towards achieving the state’s vision on family and reproductive health has been launched by the Ogun State Primary Health Care Development Board.
 
The three-year plan is aimed at increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate among families in the state from 26% to 52% by 2018.
 

Fear Forces Mothers Living With HIV To Shun Breastfeeding

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Contrary to emerging evidence which has proved that HIV-positive women who breastfeed maximise their babies’ health prospects, Nigerian mothers living with the infection are still evading the exercise.
 
Until recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised HIV-positive mothers to avoid breastfeeding if they were able to afford, prepare and store formula milk safely.
 

Nigeria enhances maternal, child survival through family planning— Dr Mojisola Odeku, Prog Director, NURHI

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

During the 60th  National Conference onHealth, NCH, Project Director, Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), Dr Mojisola Odeku, speaks about the essence of The Challenge Initiative, TCI. Excerpts.
 
The Challenge Initiative, TCI, is doing business in an unusual way. It’s really nothing new but a practical way of ensuring that the owners of the land take it back for themselves with us just providing the light technical assistance.
 

2017: Sad year in Nigeria’s health sector; over 1,000 die from preventable diseases

Monday, January 1, 2018

Nigeria started 2017 with the news of outbreak of Meningitis which lasted for months and was followed by other rare and uncommon diseases. There were also new policies and the launch of primary health care centres to improve the health sector. During the year, doctors and health workers also embarked on strikes, while many global health reports were released.
 
PREMIUM TIMES compiles some of the major health events that headlined 2017.
 
1,166 people died of meningitis in six months
 

‘Our mandate is to make PHCs more efficient’

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Dr. Faisal Shuaib is the newly appointed Executive Secretary of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA). In this interview with Vincent Ikuomola and Olugbenga Adanikin, he identified challenges confronting access to primary health care delivery in the country and concerted efforts being made to provide sustainable solutions to the sector. Excerpts:
 
We know how paramount the health care centres are to your mandate. Considering their current status, will you say you are satisfied?
 

Low income women cry to Ambode over poor maternal healthcare

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Women in Lagos State have cried out to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode over what they described as the exorbitant cost of accessing maternal healthcare in government-owned medical facilities in the state, demanding that the state government redefine the term ‘free healthcare’ which it claims to be offering to expectant women.
 

Use of heat from lanterns, hot water for umbilical cord care can kill — Experts

Saturday, December 30, 2017

According to researchers, a substantial proportion of neonatal deaths occur from infections; neonatal tetanus inclusive of the umbilical cord. Cord care practices may directly contribute to infections in the newborn which accounts for the 26 per cent of global under five deaths, experts say. Evidence from studies also show that the prevalence of cord infection in newborns ranges from 3 to 5.5 per cent in most developing countries.
 

SPECIAL REPORT: Checking the increasing rate of unsafe abortions

Friday, December 29, 2017

The World Health Organisation observes that out of more than 56 million cases of abortions that take place globally each year, almost half of the cases are done through unsafe procedures.
 
It notes further that between 2010 and 2014, there were 55.7 million abortion cases every year and out of these, 17.1 million cases were unsafe.
 

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