Implementation of Standard Solar PV Projects in Nigeria

The basic operating principle of Photovoltaic device is the conversion of solar irradiation into electricity. There are several applications of this principle. In Nigeria, most solar PV projects are designed for street lighting, water pumping and general stand-alone/minigrid rural electrifications. However, several solar PV projects being installed in various parts of this country fail to meet the minimum life-span due to a number of limiting factors. These include poor or improper fundamental design, use of sub-standard components, adoption of poor installation procedure by inexperienced personnel, bad construction/civil works among other factors. This has become a problem in the country and many are beginning to feel disgusted with solar PV projects as the heavy investments in such projects do not seem to be commensurate with their performances and satisfactions derivable. This paper therefore presents an overview of the performances of solar PV projects and a concise procedural approach to the implementation of standard solar PV projects in the country. In-depth analysis of performances of existing systems was also considered and the limiting factors identified with specific recommendations for improvement. We believe that if power projects are designed and executed properly by experienced technical experts, using the appropriate components and best technical procedures, standard PV projects with maximum performance output could be achieved

Assessment of Quality of Out-patient Prescriptions in the National Health Insurance Scheme Unit of a Tertiary Hospital in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The fact that today's evidence based guidelines recommends several drugs in the treatment of a single medical condition make drug treatment particularly challenging. Consequently, many patients use a number of medications a situation referred to as polypharmacy. Polypharmacy is linked to occurrence of health risk through increased drug therapy problems like adverse drug reactions, medication error, adherence problem, economic burden etc. This study characterized the quality of out-patient prescriptions in National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, using some selected indicators of Polypharmacy. These include contraindication, drug interaction, drug for treating side effect of co-prescribed drug and inappropriate dosages. Five Hundred out-patient prescriptions were used for the study. The average number of drug per prescription was 3.95±1.51. About 20.4% of the encounter received prescription with inappropriate combination of five or more drugs. Of this, contraindicated drugs constituted 22.2% of all encounter. There was association between inappropriate prescription and number of drug per prescription (p<0.05). The incidence of inappropriate prescription, potential drug therapy problems, and inappropriate polypharmacy were significantly higher at drug level ≥5 drugs. There is the need to improve on rational prescribing of drugs by retraining of health care providers