Guest Post

Nigeria’s worrisome emergency response and the need to look beyond infectious diseases

Nigeria has an impressive emergency response for disease outbreaks but victims of road accidents and other emergencies are at the mercy of ‘Good Samaritans’ for a chance at survival. Death tolls continue to rise in Nigeria with more than a hundred deaths reported secondary to multiple emergency-oriented incidents within a month. One of such recent outcries arose from the recent death of Patrick Fakoya, popularly known as Rico Swavey. Fakoya was a Nigerian lawyer and former housemate of 2018 edition

Restrictive abortion laws put Nigerian women in danger

Friday Okonofua, University of Benin The word “abortion” is used to describe two types of pregnancies that end before 20 weeks, which is now regarded as the age of viability of a pregnancy. Spontaneous abortion occurs without an intention by the woman to stop the pregnancy, it is pregnancy loss before 20 weeks of gestational age. Induced abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy because it is unwanted. About 10% to 20% of all pregnancies in

COVID-19, Influenza and Sanofi’s Innovative Flu Vaccine

The coronavirus pandemic, which took the world by surprise, exposed the underbelly of the health systems worldwide. Healthcare systems in advanced economies such as Italy, Spain, US, France, etc. were quickly overwhelmed as tens of millions of residents in these countries caught the virus leading to the death of millions. In the US, for instance, more than 27 million people had been infected as of 15 February, with close to half a million reported dead from the virus. Africa, particularly Nigeria,

The Nutritional Status of Nigerian Children: What needs to change

Resilience, Doggedness, Creativity, these are some of the adjectives used to describe the Nigerian child over the years. To be frank, it has been a journey of overcoming stacked up odds for the average Nigerian child. He/she has had to fight nutritionally to gain every ounce of physical and cognitive advantage required to conquer the limitations of his immediate environment. What are the current realities of the Nigerian child in his/her own nutritional space? The most recent National Demographic and Health

“Who still thinks about Corona Virus?”

These were my sister’s exact words following a sneer and her usual sarcastic laughter. She said this in response to the announcer whose voice boomed from the radio announcing 118 new cases of the Corona Virus recorded in Nigeria on the 19th of October 2020. Sadly, this is the reality of many Nigerians, nobody seems to care anymore. Why should they? There are a lot of myths surrounding the COVID-19 virus. This has especially increased after a lot of sectors relaxed

Banding together is the only way Africa will beat COVID-19

As of 15th October 2020, the continent has a remarkably low 4.2% of the global burden of the disease and just a little above 3.5% of deaths. In this opinion piece, Africa CDC Director Dr. John Nkengasong, and AU Commissioner Amira Elfadil Mohammed Elfadil describe what the continent of Africa still needs to do to beat the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone knows by now that due to a combination of leadership, environment, social ecology, demographics and as yet unknown biological and other