Health

A new joint study headed by researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) and UC San Diego School of Medicine, United States (U.S.), have discovered that chloroquine the popular drug used to prevent and treat malaria may also be effective for Zika virus.

The drug, has a long history of safe use during pregnancy, and is relatively inexpensive.

Zika virus which is caused by the Aedes species of mosquito constitutes one of the global health risks faced by many. While in most adults the virus causes mild flu-like symptoms in pregnant women, it can result in serious birth defects in babies including hearing problems and microcephaly, a neurological condition in which newborns possess strangely tiny heads and do not develop properly.

Five people have been confirmed dead in Ngor-Okpala Local Government Area of Imo State after consuming the regular local gin popularly called 'ogogoro.' According to Punch, the deceased had between November 14 and 17 2017 visited one Uwadiegwu Eze's shop to buy and consume the local gin.

A California jury on Thursday ruled in favor of Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit by a woman who said she developed the cancer mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos in the company’s talc-based products including J&J’s Baby Powder.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the use of Pfizer Inc’s cancer drug Sutent to help prevent kidney cancer from returning following surgical removal of a kidney.

A US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously voted Thursday to approve an experimental genetic therapy for patients with a rare inherited eye disease.

Stillbirth and newborn death risk could be reduced by offering more pregnant women the chance to give birth on their due date, experts believe.

Currently, women who are overdue but well are often given a couple of extra weeks to see if labour will happen spontaneously before doctors intervene.