Health

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) disclosed on Monday that less than 10 per cent of particularly youths in Kaduna State knew their HIV status.

The HIV and AIDS Specialist, UNICEF, Kaduna, Dr Idris Baba, made the disclosure in Kaduna at the 2017 World AIDS Day, organised by the Kaduna State Agency for the Control of AIDS (KADSACA).

The specialist said that 15 per cent of Nigerian youths of less than 15 years engaged in sexual debut, adding that the development had elevated HIV vulnerability among young people.

More than two million children have been administered polio vaccines in rural communities of Jigawa, Niger, Taraba and Zamfara states in the past one year. Dr. Esther Obinya, a UNICEF Health Specialist and National Coordinator of the Hard To Reach Project (HTR) stated this on Saturday in a chat with NAN correspondents. She said the initiative was sponsored by Global Affairs Canada in conjunction with UNICEF.

Emerging reports indicate that some Nigerians based in Libya are deeply involved in the abduction and auctioning of their fellow countrymen as slave. The revelation is coming after thousand of Nigerians are being repatriated by the International Organization of Migration in collaboration with the European Union. For instance in November, over 1, 295 Nigerians were repatriated from Libya, while over 5, 578 have been brought back so far in 2017.

AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria (APIN), a public health initiative has disclosed that about 70, 655 persons from three Nigerian states of Lagos, Oyo and Plateau, have been enrolled on free HIV and AIDS treatment by the federal government.

The Nigerian Police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) have vowed to partner with health practitioners to arrest cases of female genital mutilations especially in Oyo, Osun and Ekiti states. The Commandant of NSCDC, Oyo state Command, John Adewole, his Osun state counterpart, Akinwande Aboluwoye and the Assistant Commissioner of Police in Charge of Criminal Investigation, Ekiti State jointly stated this on Wednesday in Oshogbo, the Osun state capital.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says over 10 percent of drugs sold in developing countries are fake or substandard, leading to tens of thousands of deaths, many of whom are African children given ineffective treatments for pneumonia and malaria.