Clinical correlate of tuberculosis in HIV co-infected children at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Nigeria

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) co-infection with HIV is becoming a global emergency especially in the sub-Saharan Africa. Its diagnosis is notoriously challenging in countries with poor resource settings with limited diagnostic facilities.Objective: To determine the prevalence, pattern, outcome, and clinical risk factors of TB in HIV co-infected children in Abuja, Nigeria.Materials and Methods: An 18 months retrospective review of HIV-infected children diagnosed as having co-infection with TB was carried out at the special treatment clinic of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), Gwagwalada, from February 2007 to August 2008 for the above objectives.Results: Of a total 210 HIV-infected children observed during the review period, 41 (19.5%) were diagnosed as having co-existing TB. Their mean age, weight, CD4 cell count and its percentage were 6.3 ± 2.4 years, 14.3 ± 3.4 kg, 262 ± 28.0 cells/ml, and 9.9%, respectively. Pulmonary TB accounted for 59% of all TB cases seen, while disseminated form was seen in 26.8%. Bone involvement was the least common form seen in only (2.4%) of cases. Confirmation of TB was only possible by positive smear and histology in 22.0% of cases, while 78.0% of cases remained unconfirmed. Co-infection was significantly higher in older children (>5 years) than in younger children <5 years (32 vs 9, P < 0.05). Severe weight loss was the only clinical feature found to have a fairly good sensitivity (88.9%) and specificity (88.6%) for TB in co-infected children, with a positive predictive value of 23.0%. While immune reconstitution syndrome (IRS) occurred in 2 (4.9%) of the patients, only one death (2.4%) was recorded among the co-infected children.Conclusions: TB co-infection with HIV in children is common in this environment. Severe weight loss can be used as a clinical guide to identify HIV-infected children at risk of co-infection with TB who will require further evaluation

Seed to plant transmission of Xanthomonas campestris pv. vignicola isolates in cowpea

Open Access Journal; Published: 18 March 2010Seed transmission of Xanthomonas campestris pv. vignicola was investigated to ascertain the importance of seed as a primary source of inoculum for bacterial blight disease in cowpea. The study was carried out using seeds of five cowpea varieties (TVx 12349, IT86D-721, IT82D-889, Ife Brown and TVx 3236) artificially inoculated with three bacterial isolates (Ikenne, Kano and Ibadan), and seeds harvested from infected plants. Results showed that seed to plant transmission caused 6 – 24% post-emergence seedling mortality and 26 – 49% incidence of blight in plants raised from infected seeds. These results support seed transmission of X. campestris pv. vignicola in cowpea and suggest that the distant spread of bacterial blight on cowpea may also be due to seed transmission

The Role of National Assembly in Conflict Resolution: A Case of Anti- Subsidy Strikes of 2012

The legislature has added the responsibility of conflict mediation and resolution to its numerous functions The legislature has established an enviable record of performance in this area For instance since 1999 the legislature has positively intervened and settled several government labour disputes be it over minimum wage ASUU demands for better conditions of service in the Universities or most recently the fuel subsidy strike The timing of the removal of subsidy from petroleum products by the Executive was most inauspicious It came at a time when majority of Nigerians were in their various villages and communities for the Christmas and New Year festivities They were trapped and stranded as they could not afford the huge escalation in fuel price which moved from N65 to N140 per litre of petrol in the average Nigerian community No one anticipated such sudden sharp increase as Nigerians had planned the budget for their trips based on existing cost parameters and indices People were thus thrown into unavoidable economic turmoil and even reduced to the level of destitution and beggary As the representatives of the people The National Assembly were inundated with barrage of calls and protestations from our constituents all over the country on their worsening economic situation occasioned by the subsidy removal Confronted with such a terrible situation the House of Representatives had to convene an emergency session on a Sunday 8th January 2012 the first of its kind in our legislative history This culminated in the decision of the House to set up the Hon Farouk Law an led Ad-Hoc Committee on the Investigation and Monitoring of the Fuel Subsidy regime To address the urgent matter of the impending strike the National Assembly set up the Patrick Ikhariale Committee to reach out to Labour and arrest the situation The findings of the Committee have since revealed that the huge funds being misapplied by a privileged few in our society in the name of

'Smart' connected Africa leverages technology to promote growth but will ICT be Africa's saving grace in development?

Okechukwu Okorie explores the potential impact ICT could have on development in African countries

Women Involvement in Rural Community Development in Enugu North Senatorial Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria

The study ascertained the involvement of women in rural community development (RCD). The study was carried out in Enugu north senatorial zone, Enugu State, Nigeria, with a total of 4 communities randomly selected from 2 randomly selected LGAs. The total sample size of 60 women was used. Data were collected using an interview schedule and analysed using percentages and mean scores. The findings reveal that agricultural related projects (96.7 %), social projects (91.7 %), educational projects (81.7 %) and health projects (81.7%) were areas of RCD women were involved in. The agricultural related projects of interest included: animal rearing and sales (96.7 %), corn processing outfits (91.7%), seasonal crop processing and production (90%) among others. Traders association (x=2.45) and market women association   (x=2.45) were RCD groups women were mostly part of, while women empowerment programs (M=2.45), education (M=2.42), urbanization (M=2.42) among others were the factors that enabled women involvement in RCD. Women were involved and played a crucial role in RCD.  A more conducive environment such as the provision of soft loans and jobs should be created by government authorities to sustain women’s motivation and encourage them to delve into other areas of RCD like Information and Communication Technologies that their presence is not so pronounced

The Impact Of Stigma On The Prevention Of HIV/AIDS

No Abstrac

Legal Education Reform in Africa: Time to Revisit the Two-tier Legal Education System

The two-tier legal education system has become increasingly ineffective by virtue of the evolution of changes in legal practice and Africa’s unique conditions and circumstances. The problem is rooted in the fact that some African countries adopted the two-tier legal education system on the assumption that what worked in Britain offered a prescription for success in Africa. However, the two-tier legal education system has been ineffective in Africa because the infrastructure—pupilage, apprenticeship, continuing legal education—that complements and anneals it is not widely available in Africa. Where these elements exist, they tend to be frail and unreliable. Africa’s urgent challenge is to design an appropriate legal education structure that helps lawyers develop the highest possible degree of capability to respond effectively and resourcefully to Africa’s problems. It is time for Africa to address a fundamental question well phrased by Samuel Manteaw, a Ghanaian scholar: “What type of lawyer does Africa need? And do these [educational] institutions produce the type of lawyer Africa needs?”1 Using Nigeria as a case study, this paper examines the two-tier system of legal education in Africa. It examines the implications and assumptions of the two-tier system and its negative effects on legal education. It proposes a constructive alternative that abolishes the two-tier system and vests the teaching of doctrinal and skill courses in the law faculties of universities. This paper argues that the two-tier legal education system imperils legal training by the arbitrary division between doctrinal and skills courses and teaching them separately at different institutions. As it presently exists in Nigeria, the two-tier system requires fundamental structural and institutional reform to create a better pathway to producing competent lawyers who can respond responsibly and effectively to society’s needs and challenges. A comprehensive legal education offered through law faculties will powerfully enrich legal education and improve the caliber of training received by lawyers in Nigeria

The Challenges of International Criminal Prosecutions in Africa

This article evaluates the problems and challenges of international criminal prosecutions in Africa.Part I examines the values of criminal prosecution. It examines whether international criminal prosecutions can be used as a vehicle to contribute to national reconciliation and to the restoration and maintenance of peace. I concede that punishing perpetrators of evil is definitively a viable mechanism for combating impunity. In appropriate cases, the criminal process can be deployed to engineer compliance with the law and to deter would-be perpetrators of evil. I argue, however, that the objectives of using criminal prosecution to reestablish social equilibrium and promote reconciliation, though laudable and rhetorically inspiring, are simply unattainable. The hope that international criminal prosecutions will reconcile mutually distrustful ethnic groups with a long history of reciprocal hatred is quaint, perhaps even naive. International criminal prosecutions launched in Africa amidst much publicity and high expectations are on the verge of oblivion, perhaps irrelevance. After more than ten years of international criminal prosecutions in Africa, it is becoming increasingly obvious that criminal prosecution is a weak reed on which to hoist the strategy of reestablishing social equilibrium and reconciling intergroup hostilities in post-conflict African societies. A confluence of systemic and environmental factors have undermined the hoped-for influence of international criminal prosecutions in Africa. Part II examines the limitations of criminal trials. This portion presents a clear and rich exploration of the causes of violence in Africa and explains why international criminal law has not delivered as promised. It offers some explanations of factors that undermine the effectiveness of international criminal prosecutions, namely attitudinal, environmental factors, lack of cooperation from state governments, and limits of criminal prosecution. It urges all those involved in the fight against impunity in Africa to rethink the deeply flawed assumptions about the capacity of international law to bring about transformative changes in the conduct of citizens and group relations in Africa. Violence is so interwoven with the maladies in the continent - corruption, poverty, ethnic tensions - that it is doubtful if criminal prosecutions alone can serve as a chastening influence on the behavior of the leaders or the citizens trapped within the society. Building an effective strategy to reestablish social order in post-conflict African societies requires an understanding of the idiosyncratic environmental factors that animate violence, as well as recognition that criminal prosecutions cannot address the social pathologies that have disfigured Africa. It is these pathologies that will define and shape Africa\u27s future, not the legacy of criminal prosecutions

Quality of care, loss to follow-up and mortality among paediatric and adolescent HIV patients on antiretroviral therapy in Abuja, Nigeria: a 15-year retrospective review

Background: Loss to follow up, and mortality still remains very high among HIV positive children and adolescents in many under privileged settings, in spite of massive scale up of anti-retroviral treatment. We assessed the quality of care using 7-point indicators, loss to follow up, and mortality among HIV positive children and adolescents in our health institution.Method: A 15-year (2006 to 2020) retrospective review was conducted among HIV positive children who assessed care in paediatric out-patient special treatment clinic of our tertiary health institution in Nigeria for above objective.Results: Of the 563 subjects initiated on antiretroviral therapy, 349 (62.0%) still remained on treatment. There were 285 (50.6%) males, highest enrollment 280 (49.7%) was at 2006-2010, most 192 (34.1%) were 0-24 months of age, 244 (43.3%) were under-weight, and 176 (31.3%) had severe immune suppression at enrollment. Sixty-eight (12.1%) were lost to follow-up, mortality was 14 (2.5%), 103 (18.3.1%), and 25 (4.4%) were transferred to adult clinic, and to other centers. While over 85% had a high-quality indicator score of 458 (81.4%), with significant difference between the male and female (x2=8.56, p=0.003,), only 231 (66.2%) had adequate viral suppression of 0.001 with multivariate analysis.Conclusions: Though the study recorded high quality score services to HIV positive children and adolescents in our center, loss to follow-up, and mortality was however high. More is needed to be done to improve the viral load suppression among our clients