Top News

The Federal Government has pledged to support the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) with N100 million grant to boost research and development of traditional herbal medicines.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, made the pledge in Abuja on Friday at the occasion of the institute’s Research and Development Products Presentation.

The event also marks the end of tenure of the NIPRD Director-General, Prof. Karniyus Gamaniel, which spans a period of eight years; 2009 to 2017.

It also showcases the achievements and challenges faced by the institute during this period in the area of research and development of traditional herbal products.
The minister said at the occasion that the funds would be used to set up a unit that would be dedicated to research and development of traditional herbal products in the institute.
Adewole gave NAFDAC 30 days ultimatum to approve all the products developed by the institute to enable it move for commercialisation and subsequent use by citizens.
The minister, who scored the institute high in its 30 years of existence, however challenged it to do more in the years to come.

Research carried out in part by an artificially-intelligent (AI) ‘robot scientist’ has found that a common ingredient of toothpaste could be developed to fight drug-resistant strains of malaria.

In a study in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists from Britain’s Cambridge University who used the AI robot to conduct high-throughput screening said the ingredient, triclosan, showed the potential to interrupt malaria infections at two critical stages - in the liver and the blood.

Malaria kills around half a million people every year, the vast majority of them children in the poorest parts of Africa. The disease can be treated with a number of drugs, but resistance to these medicines is increasing, raising the risk that some strains may become untreatable in the future.

Reuters news agency reports that because of this, the search for new medicines was becoming increasingly urgent, said Steve Oliver of Cambridge University’s biochemistry department, who co-led the work with Elizabeth Bilsland.

A U.S -based philanthropic agency, Project C.U.R.E, embarked on training of medical personnel in Ekiti State health institutions as part of the ways to deal with the escalating infant mortality rate in Nigeria.

The one-day workshop dubbed: ‘Helping Babies Breathe (HBB)’ which held at Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) on Thursday, was powered by Project C.U.R.E, and facilitated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The German government has donated 150 million Euros to Nigeria to assist the country facilitate total eradication of polio, NAN reports. The Spokesperson, Ministry of Health, Dr. Tiwatope Elias-Fatile stated this on Wednesday at a press conference in Abuja.

A 30 year U.S study reveals that women who practice exclusive breastfeeding for six months or longer appear to significantly curtail the risk of developing type II diabetes.

The Kaiser Permanente research, published in the U.S. journal JAMA Internal Medicine, examined data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA).

The study comprised of 1,238 black and white women who did not have diabetes when they enrolled in CARDIA, or prior to their subsequent pregnancies.

Over the next 30 years, each woman had at least one live birth and was consistently screened for diabetes under the CARDIA protocol.

Babies under five years of age in their thousands continue to die on a daily basis from preventable diseases including malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea and malnutrition, particularly in third world countries.

Children in Sub-Saharan Africa are ten times more likely to be killed by these prevalent health challenges before the age of five than children in more developed countries.

Despite reasonable progress made on the health of young kids with mortality rate almost cut by half in 2000, millions still hardly get to five.