African traditional medication and keloid formation in herpes zoster ophthalmicus

Keloid scar complicating herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO) has not been much reported among Africans despite the African population having dark skin. We report on a middle-aged Nigerian with HZO who developed keloid scar following use of traditional herbs to the herpetic rashes. A 52-year-old immune-competent Nigerian male presented with a 2-week history of vesicular rashes involving the left side of the forehead down to the tip of the nose. He initially presented to an African traditional healer who had advised application of various herbs to the lesion. When he presented to the eye clinic, he was treated for the associated uveitis with significant improvement. The cicatricial skin change gradually became raised with clinical appearance of keloid at 1 year of follow-up. Cicatricial skin changes in HZO are not unusual, but keloid formation among Africans has not been much described. Late presentation, use of traditional herbs some of which have corrosive effect and secondary bacterial infection are the possible factors that may encourage such abnormal wound healing. The myth associated with HZO in the local African setting as well as the fact that African traditional healers are still widely accepted among most African communities may play a role in increasing the risk of keloid formation among our population following HZO infection

Farmers' Children Involvement in Cassava Production in Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria

Child's labour has attracted the global attention in recent times and the ILO has come up with several conventions to address the issue. For a developing nation like Nigeria that are reported to have alarming child's labour cases, it is then expedient to examine the children's involvement in cassava production since this is currently in the heart of the governmentagricultural reforms to improve the lots of the rural dwellers. This study investigates the involvement of farmers' children in cassava production inAkure South local government area of Ondo State, Nigeria. A field survey was carried out in which data was obtained from 120 farmers' children in Akure south L.G.A. using multi-stage sampling technique. The data collected were analyzed using frequency counts and percentageswhile the hypotheses were tested with Pearson's correlation coefficient.Majority of the respondents are within the age group of 13 and15 years (46.7%).More than half of the respondents are males (58.3%).About 60.8% of the respondents are in post primary school. Respondents are predominantly Christians (71.7%).Majority (55.8%) of the respondents' parents have less than 3000 heaps of cassava. About 32.5% of the respondents have their own farms. The study also shows that more than half (50.83%) of the respondents have low involvement in pre harvest activities while 65.00% of the respondents had medium involvement in post harvest activities. Pearson's r-coefficient shows that age is positively and significantly related to level of involvement (r = 0.466) at 0.01 level of significance. Religion of the respondents significantly affect their levels of involvement in cassava production(r =0.221) at 0.05 level of significance while gender, level of education and the respondents' parents' farmsize had no significant relationship with their level of involvement in cassava production. The study concludes that the children's ages and moral teaching taught to them can affect their involvement in cassava production. And the study recommends that education should be made accessible to the poor farmers' children in rural communities by government.  And that government should encourage moral teachings (through religions teachings) and agriculture as a subject being taught to these children in their schools.Keywords: Child labour, production, farmers' children, level of involvemen