COVID-19 Experience: Taking the right steps at the right time to prevent avoidable morbidity and mortality in Nigeria and other nations of the world

The 2020 Coronavirus pandemic has caused countless governmental and societal challenges around the world. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has been exposed in recent years to a series of epidemics including Ebola and Lassa Fever. In this paper we document our perception of the national response to COVID-19 in Nigeria. The response to the pandemic is with a healthcare system that has changed as a result of previous infectious disease outbreaks but in the context of scarce resources typical of many low-middle income countries. We make recommendations regarding what measures should be in place for future epidemics

Foreign aid or foreign investments: Call for a paradigm shift in mentality and nomenclature

Funding for health care programs has over the years been an important challenge for health and health care services. However with the advent offinancing, part of this problem was resolved. Through these investments, lives were saved, many destinies recovered and some obsolete systemsreengineered. Major proofs of these expenditures are number of people reached and sometimes number of sites opened/supported, which inseveral cases, are not entirely verifiable. Sustainable development from these funds is limited, and far and in between. This is despite the fact thatsupports for health care and health care services have been ongoing for more than 60 years. As long as these funds are seen as aids to developing countries, they will continue to fail to achieve their primary objectives. But looking at these as investments in supported countries will significantly improve the outcome, health system impacts, as well as engineer  sustainable health system strengthening and improvement. Such a re-branding will reduce the politics of support, improve effectiveness and efficiency in the use of the resources, and empower receiving nations towards better health systems

Individual and Socioeconomic Factors Associated With Childhood Immunization Coverage in Nigeria

Immunization remains one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions worldwide. The purpose of this study was to examine the individual and socioeconomic factors that influence childhood immunization coverage in Nigeria. The health belief model and the social ecological model were used as the theoretical framework for the study, which examined the effects of individual, parental, and socioeconomic factors on complete immunization among Nigerian children. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate tests were conducted within a secondary analysis of 2013 Nigerian National Demographic and Health Survey was done. Of 27,571 children aged 0 to 59 months, 22.1% had full vaccination and 29% never received any vaccination. Immunization coverage was significantly related to the socioeconomic status of the child\u27s parents, region, and marital status (p \u3c 0.00). Similarly, child birth order, delivery place, child number, and presence or absence of child health card in the family were significantly related to the level of immunization (p \u3c 0.00). Maternal age, geographical location, education, religion, literacy, wealth index, marital status, and occupation were significantly associated with immunization coverage. Respondent\u27s age, educational attainment, and wealth index remained significantly related to immunization coverage at 95% confidence interval in multivariate analysis. Implications for positive social change include evidence on hindrances to successful immunization programs and relevant information for a more effective, efficient, sustainable and acceptable immunization program for the stakeholders in Nigeria

Before Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): why Nigeria failed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

World leaders adopted the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000, which committed the nations of the world to a new global partnership, aimed at reducing extreme poverty and other time-bound targets, with a stated deadline of 2015. Fifteen years later, although significant progress has been made worldwide, Nigeria is lagging behind for a variety of reasons, including bureaucracy, poor resource management in the healthcare system, sequential healthcare worker industrial action, Boko Haram insurgency in the north of Nigeria and kidnappings in the south of Nigeria. The country needs to tackle these problems to be able to significantly advance with the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) by the 2030 target date

Before Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): why Nigeria failed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

World leaders adopted the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000, which committed the nations of the world to a new global partnership, aimed at reducing extreme poverty and other time-bound targets, with a stated deadline of 2015. Fifteen years later, although significant progress has been made worldwide, Nigeria is lagging behind for a variety of reasons, including bureaucracy, poor resource management in the healthcare system, sequential healthcare worker industrial action, Boko Haram insurgency in the north of Nigeria and kidnappings in the south of Nigeria. The country needs to tackle these problems to be able to significantly advance with the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) by the 2030 target date

Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa: Lessons learned and issues arising from West African countries

© Royal College of Physicians 2015. All rights reserved.The current Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak ravaging three nations in West Africa has affected more than 14,000 persons and killed over 5,000. It is the longest and most widely spread Ebola epidemic ever seen. At the time of this overview (written November 2014), having affected eight different nations, Nigeria and Senegal were able to control and eliminate the virus within a record time. Ghana has successfully, to date, kept the virus away from the country, despite economic and social relationships with affected nations. What lessons can we learn from Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana in the current epidemic? How can the world improve the health systems in low- and middle-income countries to effectively manage future outbreaks? Recently, the Royal College of Physicians launched a new partnership with the West African College of Physicians to curtail the effects of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the region. We believe that strengthened health systems, skilled human resources for health and national ownership of problems are key to effective management of outbreaks such as EVD

Sustainable Health Development Goals (SHDG): breaking down the walls.

The worlds governments failed to achieve the Health for All 2000 goals from the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978. Although a lot of milestones have been covered since 2000, the worlds governing authorities are unlikely to achieve the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which expire by the end of this year. The inability to achieve these goals may be linked to the multiplicity of health-related directives and fragmentation of health systems in many countries. However, with the proposed 17 sustainability development goals, health has only one universal aim: to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. Accomplishing this will require a focus on health systems (system-thinking), commonization of services and full integration of services with total dismantling of vertical programs across the world

Is the prevalence of HIV wrongly estimated in Nigeria? Some insights from a 2017 World AIDS day experience from a Nigerian Non-Governmental Organisation

Introduction: HIV is still a major public health challenge, especially in resource-limited settings. In Nigeria, it is estimated that over 50% of those infected with HIV do not know their status. With the recent Nigerian governmental approval of a "Test and Start Strategy", we embarked on HIV testing and services in four defined locations to mark 2017 World AIDS Day. The aim of this report is to document the process and outcome of the exercise. Methods: four teams led by senior clinical associates implemented the services and were mandated to test at least 100 persons per location. At each location, we carried out the following activities: (1) short advocacy to community leaders, (2) HIV testing and counselling, (3) disclosure of results, post-test counselling and healthy life-style education and (4) distribution of free male condoms and Information, Education and Communication (IEC) material. Results: a total of 237 people (male 195, female 42) were tested, the majority of whom were between 19 and 49 years (93.7%). Two people were found to be positive, giving a 0.84% positivity rate. Informal interactions between service providers and the people tested revealed that people were aware of HIV as a public health problem, and people positively received HIV services. Although there is a selection bias, as those tested will not be truly representative of the population, the current positively rate of less than 1% is low compared to previous Nigerian estimates, which are based on antenatal testing. However, the exercise showed a willingness to be tested and fair knowledge of HIV as a problem. Population-based data from across Nigeria should be aggregated to determine community prevalence pending the National population-based HIV survey in 2018. Such information will inform evidence-based decisions on the necessity of such large-scale surveys in future years. Conclusion: there is an urgent need to define the real prevalence of HIV in Nigeria through a well planned and executed community based survey

Community psychiatry care: an urgent need in Nigeria

Nigeria’s mental health policy was formulated in 1991, but it did not make adequate provision for community-based psychiatric care. Since there are only seven government-owned psychiatry facilities in Nigeria and these are always overwhelmed, there is the need to overhaul the existing policy and emphasise the urgency of a shift from inpatient psychiatric mental healthcare towards a community-based multidisciplinary psychiatric healthcare system

Engaging currently available tested and proven strategies to tackle hepatitis B viral epidemic: the HBV-4-pronged approach (HBV4PA)

Hepatitis B viral (HBV) infection is a major world problem and is a key contributing factor to the worldwide incidence of hepatocelullar carcinoma, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. However, although hepatitis B treatment is available and effective, it is out of the reach of the common person. Many have, because of cost of treatment, succumbed to the chronic effects of HBV infection, such as liver cirrhosis and primary liver cancer. In this article, we make a case for the provision of free antiviral drugs to chronically-infected HBV patients by expanding the current HIV services to HBV-infected individuals using the PMTCT model. This, when implemented, will save lives, prevent unnecessary and escalating health expenditure and ensure sustainable development