Lexy Blog

  Today marks the one year anniversary of the passing of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh.   As Nigeria heaved a collective sigh of relief after being declared free of Ebola in October 2014, one woman is being widely praised for helping to ensure a more devastating outbreak was avoided. She is the late Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh  Dr. Adadevoh raised a red flag when attending to a Liberian-American patient at the First Consultant Hospital, Obalende, Lagos on July 20, 2014. The late Patrick Sawyer had just flown into the country, already sick - he should never have been allowed on the plane. The late Patrick Sawyer, seen here with his daughter, became the first person to die of Ebola in Nigeria   Her heroic efforts and decision to isolate Mr. Sawyer despite intense pressure to let him leave revented an outbreak and saved countless lives. However, she contracted Ebola and died on 19 August 2014. Nigeria had never had an Ebola case before so it was an

The Government of Nigeria and United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has announced they have reached more than a million Nigerian children with a highly successful and cost-effective treatment for acutely malnourished children, saving over 200,000 lives in the past six years. Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) was piloted in Gombe and Kebbi States in 2009 and has now been introduced in 11 northern Nigerian states-Adamawa Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara-here malnutrition poses the greatest threat. CMAM treats acutely malnourished children from six months to five years old on an out-patient basis. More than 830,000 children have been cured in the programme with the cure rate rising steadily – currently standing at 85 per cent. Of the remaining children, about two per cent do not respond to treatment and are referred to hospitals; the current mortality rate is just one per cent, while the other children

  People who delay or refuse vaccines for themselves or their children are presenting a growing challenge for countries seeking to close the immunization gap. Globally, one in 5 children still do not receive routine life-saving immunizations, and an estimated 1.5 million children still die each year of diseases that could be prevented by vaccines that already exist, according to the World Health Organization. In a special issue of the journal Vaccine, guest-edited by WHO and published today, experts review the role of vaccine hesitancy in limiting vaccine coverage and explore strategies to address it. Vaccine hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance or refusal of safe vaccines despite availability of vaccination services. The issue is complex and context specific, varying across time, place and vaccines. It is influenced by factors such as misinformation, complacency, convenience and confidence. “Vaccines can only improve health and prevent deaths if they are used, a

Nigeria would require about $ 51 billion (10 times of public health expenditure in 2012) to catch up with more advanced health systems in developed economies including Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries by 2030, according to a report of the World Economic Forum (WEF)and Boston Consulting Group, the world’s leading advisor on business strategy. While the healthcare systems of Nigeria and other emerging economies struggle to satisfy demand for basic health services, reduce the incidence of preventable communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, etc. and the cost of developing their health systems, Nigeria would need over 700,000 additional doctors to reach OECD levels by 2030, the report stated. With the drivers of demand and supply for health services in emerging economies more complex and diverse than in developed economies, poor basic health combine with violence and environmental factors in Nigeria to create strong demand