Lead accumulation by hammerhead shark, Sphyrna couardi (C.) off Lagos coast, Nigeria

Levels of concentration of lead in the hammerhead shark, Sphyrna couardi, off the Lagos Coast of Nigeria were investigated. The standard length of the specimens examined ranged from 31.4cm to 47.2cm while the weights ranged from 451.5 to 1,667g. The lead concentration ranged from 0.11 degree kg/G to 0.38 degree kg/G. The mean lead concentration was 0.56 degree kg/G (dry weight). The gill has the highest lead concentration. There was no linear correlation between the length and weight and the amount of lead concentrate

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic across Africa : current status of vaccinations and implications for the future

The introduction of effective vaccines in December 2020 marked a significant step forward in the global response to COVID-19. Given concerns with access, acceptability, and hesitancy across Africa, there is a need to describe the current status of vaccine uptake in the continent. An exploratory study was undertaken to investigate these aspects, current challenges, and lessons learnt across Africa to provide future direction. Senior personnel across 14 African countries completed a self-administered questionnaire, with a descriptive analysis of the data. Vaccine roll-out commenced in March 2021 in most countries. COVID-19 vaccination coverage varied from low in Cameroon and Tanzania and up to 39.85% full coverage in Botswana at the end of 2021; that is, all doses advocated by initial protocols versus the total population, with rates increasing to 58.4% in Botswana by the end of June 2022. The greatest increase in people being fully vaccinated was observed in Uganda (20.4% increase), Botswana (18.5% increase), and Zambia (17.9% increase). Most vaccines were obtained through WHO-COVAX agreements. Initially, vaccination was prioritised for healthcare workers (HCWs), the elderly, adults with co-morbidities, and other at-risk groups, with countries now commencing vaccination among children and administering booster doses. Challenges included irregular supply and considerable hesitancy arising from misinformation fuelled by social media activities. Overall, there was fair to reasonable access to vaccination across countries, enhanced by government initiatives. Vaccine hesitancy must be addressed with context-specific interventions, including proactive programmes among HCWs, medical journalists, and the public

Response to the Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) Pandemic Across Africa: Successes, Challenges, and Implications for the Future

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed considerable lives. There are major concerns in Africa due to existing high prevalence rates for both infectious and non-infectious diseases and limited resources in terms of personnel, beds and equipment. Alongside this, concerns that lockdown and other measures will have on prevention and management of other infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCDs are an increasing issue with rising morbidity and mortality rates. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that a lack of nets and treatment could result in up to 18 million additional cases of malaria and up to 30,000 additional deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. Objective: Document current prevalence and mortality rates from COVID-19 alongside economic and other measures to reduce its spread and impact across Africa. In addition, suggested ways forward among all key stakeholder groups. Our Approach: Contextualise the findings from a wide range of publications including internet-based publications coupled with input from senior-level personnel. Ongoing Activities: Prevalence and mortality rates are currently lower in Africa than among several Western countries and the USA. This could be due to a number of factors including early instigation of lockdown and border closures, the younger age of the population, lack of robust reporting systems and as yet unidentified genetic and other factors. Innovation is accelerating to address concerns with available equipment. There are ongoing steps to address the level of misinformation and its consequences including fines. There are also ongoing initiatives across Africa to start addressing the unintended consequences of COVID-19 activities including lockdown measures and their impact on NCDs including the likely rise in mental health disorders, exacerbated by increasing stigma associated with COVID-19. Strategies include extending prescription lengths, telemedicine and encouraging vaccination. However, these need to be accelerated to prevent increased morbidity and mortality. Conclusion: There are multiple activities across Africa to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and address misinformation, which can have catastrophic consequences, assisted by the WHO and others, which appear to be working in a number of countries. Research is ongoing to clarify the unintended consequences given ongoing concerns to guide future activities. Countries are learning from each other

Strategies to Improve Antimicrobial Utilization with a Special Focus on Developing Countries

From MDPI via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: accepted 2021-06-02, pub-electronic 2021-06-07Publication status: PublishedAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a high priority across countries as it increases morbidity, mortality and costs. Concerns with AMR have resulted in multiple initiatives internationally, nationally and regionally to enhance appropriate antibiotic utilization across sectors to reduce AMR, with the overuse of antibiotics exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Effectively tackling AMR is crucial for all countries. Principally a narrative review of ongoing activities across sectors was undertaken to improve antimicrobial use and address issues with vaccines including COVID-19. Point prevalence surveys have been successful in hospitals to identify areas for quality improvement programs, principally centering on antimicrobial stewardship programs. These include reducing prolonged antibiotic use to prevent surgical site infections. Multiple activities centering on education have been successful in reducing inappropriate prescribing and dispensing of antimicrobials in ambulatory care for essentially viral infections such as acute respiratory infections. It is imperative to develop new quality indicators for ambulatory care given current concerns, and instigate programs with clear public health messaging to reduce misinformation, essential for pandemics. Regular access to effective treatments is needed to reduce resistance to treatments for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. Key stakeholder groups can instigate multiple initiatives to reduce AMR. These need to be followed up

Prescription Patterns and Drug Use Indicators in a Nigerian Urban Tertiary Health Care Facility

Rationale use of drugs increases the quality of health care, ensures cost effectiveness in health care delivery and better therapeutic outcomes. It however remains a problem in most parts of the world especially in the developing nations. This study was carried out to describe the pattern of drug utilization in a Nigerian Urban Tertiary Health Care Facility and evaluate the quality of prescriptions. This was a cross sectional study of all prescriptions received at the Pharmacy Department of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria for the month of November, 2013. All prescriptions were analyzed for some standard indices of rationale prescription. Descriptive Statistics were done using SPSS version 17.0. There were 7,516 encounters with a total of 14,794 drugs prescribed. The mean number of drugs per encounter was 2.3+1.4 drugs. Practically all classes of drugs were represented with Antibiotics being the most prescribed (26.2%), followed by Analgesics (19.4%) and Antihypertensive drugs (10.4%) respectively. Only 47.8% drugs were prescribed using generic name while there were 25% encounters with injections. The percentage prescription from the Essential Medicines Lists of the hospital was 27.9%. There were deficiencies in the quality of drug prescriptions studied as well as indices of irrational use of medicines among the prescribers. Appropriate measures needs be identified and implemented to improve on the use of medicine

Determinants of antibiotic prescribing among doctors in a Nigerian urban tertiary hospital.

OBJECTIVES:The problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has assumed pandemic dimensions especially among low-and middle-income countries such as Nigeria. Irrational use of currently available antimicrobial agents is a major contributory factor. There remains a paucity of documented information on the determinants of antibiotic prescribing among physicians in Nigeria to guide future strategies to reduce AMR. This study therefore aimed to investigate the patterns and determinants of antibiotic prescribing among doctors in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria as the first step to improve future antibiotic use in hospitals. METHODS:A cross-sectional survey of the determinants of antibiotic prescribing among doctors in the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, was performed using a structured questionnaire. Information was obtained about the doctors and the factors determining their prescription of antibiotics. The results were summarized using descriptive statistics with Statistical Package for Social Science. RESULTS:Ninety-eight respondents were studied with a mean age of 36.24(9.01) years, a mean duration of practice of 10.68(9.25) years, and mainly males (64.3%). Ninety-seven percent prescribe antibiotics frequently, mostly based on clinical judgment and experience with rare laboratory supports. Factors of cost, drug availability, and information from pharmaceutical representatives influenced antibiotic prescribing. There were indications of nonexistence or nonfunctional institutional policies and guidelines regarding antimicrobial therapies. CONCLUSION:There is an urgent need to institute evidence-based institutional policies and guidelines for improving antimicrobial use among hospitals in Nigeria. This is already being followed up

Key issues surrounding appropriate antibiotic use for prevention of surgical site infections in low- and middle-income countries; a narrative review and the implications

Background: There is a concern with the growing use of antimicrobials across countries increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) rates. A key area within hospitals is their use for the prevention of surgical site infections (SSI) with concerns with timing of the first dose, which can appreciably impact on effectiveness, as well as duration with extended prophylaxis common among low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). This is a concern as extended duration increases utilization rates and AMR as well as adverse events. Consequently, there is a need to document issues of timing and duration of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis (SAP) among LMICs together with potential ways forward to address current concerns. Methods: Narrative review of timings and duration of SAP among LMICs combined with publications documenting successful approaches to improve SAP to provide future direction to all key stakeholder groups. Results: There were documented concerns with the timing of the first dose of antibiotics, with appropriate timing as low as 6.7% in Egypt, although as high as 81.9% in Turkey. There was also an extensive duration of SAP, ranging from long duration times in all patients in a study in Nigeria with a mean of 8.7 days and 97% of patients in Egypt to 42.9% of patients in Pakistan and 35% in Turkey. Successful interventions to improve SAP typically involved multiple approaches including education of all key stakeholder groups, monitoring of usage against agreed guidelines, as well as quality targets. Multiple approaches typically improved timing and duration as well as reduced costs. For instance, in one study appropriateness increased from 30.1% to 91.4%, prolonged duration reduced to 5.7% of patients, and mean costs of antibiotics decreased 11-fold. Conclusion: There are considerable concerns with the timing and duration of SAP among LMICs. Multiple interventions among LMICs can address this providing future directions

A multicentre point prevalence study of antibiotics utilization in hospitalized patients in an urban secondary and a tertiary healthcare facilities in Nigeria : findings and implications

Objectives: The understanding of antimicrobial utilization patterns is pertinent to successful implementation of the National Action Plans on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). There is, however, limited information on antibiotics utilization in Nigeria. This study was undertaken to build on existing information and provide direction for appropriate interventions including Antibiotics Stewardship Programs (ASP). Method: A Point Prevalence Study (PPS) was conducted in two public urban health facilities in Lagos, Nigeria using a design adapted from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and Global-PPS surveys. Results: The prevalence of antibiotics use was 80.6% administered mostly parenterally (83.1% of total prescriptions) with concerns with extended surgical antibiotics prophylaxis. The mostly used antibiotics in the secondary hospital were parenteral metronidazole (32.4%), ceftriaxone (27.5%), and amoxicillin + clavulanate (8.2%) while the mostly used in the tertiary hospital were ceftriaxone (25.3%), parenteral metronidazole (19.1%), and amoxicillin + clavulanate (9.3%). There was an appreciable lack of specific functional capacities, policies, and processes to promote appropriate antimicrobial use in both hospitals. Conclusions: There is high rate of antibiotics utilization in these facilities with lack of institutional frameworks and processes for ensuring appropriate antibiotic use. The study provides the information needed to improve future antimicrobial use in hospitals and reduce AMR

Strategies to improve antimicrobial utilization with a special focus on developing countries

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a high priority across countries as it increases morbidity, mortality and costs. Concerns with AMR have resulted in multiple initiatives internationally, na-tionally and regionally to enhance appropriate antibiotic utilization across sectors to reduce AMR, with the overuse of antibiotics exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Effectively tackling AMR is crucial for all countries. Principally a narrative review of ongoing activities across sectors was undertaken to improve antimicrobial use and address issues with vaccines including COVID-19. Point prevalence surveys have been successful in hospitals to identify areas for quality improvement programs, principally centering on antimicrobial stewardship programs. These include reducing prolonged antibiotic use to prevent surgical site infections. Multiple activities centering on education have been successful in reducing inappropriate prescribing and dispensing of antimicrobials in ambulatory care for essentially viral infections such as acute respiratory infections. It is imperative to develop new quality indicators for ambulatory care given current concerns, and instigate programs with clear public health messaging to reduce misinformation, essential for pandemics. Regular access to effective treatments is needed to reduce resistance to treatments for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. Key stakeholder groups can instigate multiple initiatives to reduce AMR. These need to be followed up

Strategies to improve antimicrobial utilization with a special focus on developing countries

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a high priority across countries as it increases morbidity, mortality and costs. Concerns with AMR have resulted in multiple initiatives internationally, nationally and regionally to enhance appropriate antibiotic utilization across sectors to reduce AMR, with the overuse of antibiotics exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Effectively tackling AMR is crucial for all countries. Principally a narrative review of ongoing activities across sectors was undertaken to improve antimicrobial use and address issues with vaccines including COVID-19. Point prevalence surveys have been successful in hospitals to identify areas for quality improvement programs, principally centering on antimicrobial stewardship programs. These include reducing prolonged antibiotic use to prevent surgical site infections. Multiple activities centering on education have been successful in reducing inappropriate prescribing and dispensing of antimicrobials in ambulatory care for essentially viral infections such as acute respiratory infections. It is imperative to develop new quality indicators for ambulatory care given current concerns, and instigate programs with clear public health messaging to reduce misinformation, essential for pandemics. Regular access to effective treatments is needed to reduce resistance to treatments for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. Key stakeholder groups can instigate multiple initiatives to reduce AMR. These need to be followed up.https://www.mdpi.com/journal/lifeam2022Pharmacolog