Maternal mortality has fallen by 44 percent since 1990, United Nations agencies and the World Bank Group has declared.
In a Joint news release by the World health organisation (WHO), UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and the United nations Population Division Maternal deaths around the world dropped from about 532 000 in 1990 to an estimated 303 000 this year.
According to the report, this is the last in a series that has looked at progress under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This equates to an estimated global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of 216 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births, down from 385 in 1990.
Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy, childbirth or within six weeks after birth.
According to WHO Assistant Director-General, Family, Women’s and Children’s Health Dr Flavia Bustreo, “The MDGs triggered unprecedented efforts to reduce maternal mortality. Over the past 25 years, a woman’s risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes has nearly halved. That’s real progress, although it is not enough. We know that we can virtually end these deaths by 2030 and this is what we are committing to work towards.”
Achieving that goal will require much more effort, according to Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations’ Population Fund. “Many countries with high maternal death rates will make little progress, or will even fall behind, over the next 15 years if we don’t improve the current number of available midwives and other health workers with midwifery skills,” he said. “If we don’t make a big push now, in 2030 we’ll be faced, once again, with a missed target for reducing maternal deaths.”
The analyses contained in Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2015 – Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division are being published simultaneously in the medical journal The Lancet.
Ensuring access to high-quality health services during pregnancy and child birth is helping to save lives. Essential health interventions include: practising good hygiene to reduce the risk of infection; injecting oxytocin immediately after childbirth to reduce the risk of severe bleeding; identifying and addressing potentially fatal conditions like pregnancy-induced hypertension; and ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health services and family planning for women.
It was established 37 years ago by Nigeria and Germany to provide skilled manpower for the steel industry. But the story changed when the German teachers withdrew 20 years ago. Since then, the ownership of the National Metallurgical Training Institute (NMTI) in Oba, Anambra State, has been enmeshed in controversy. EMMANUEL AHANONU (NYSC Enugu) writes on the school’s challenges.
Its name does not ring a bell, yet the National Metallurgical Training Institute (NMTI) is a tertiary institution. Located in Oba, a sleepy town in Onitsha North Local Government Area of Anambra State, the school, with no fewer than 1,000 students, can arguably be said to be the most quiet campus in the land.
It was founded in 1978 by the German government to train middle-level technical manpower for the steel industry. The then military Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, built the school after reaching an agreement with the German government on the provision of equipment and teachers for the training of youths in extraction and purification of metals.
While NMTI continues to churn out graduates yearly, all seems not to be well with the school. Investigation by CAMPUSLIFE showed that it has been abandoned by its founders – the Nigerian and German governments. With no sustained funding, the school is also grappling with the challenges of recognition of its certificate and academic curricula.
Last month, students protested against the non-recognition of the school’s Ordinary National Diploma (OND) certificates. The protesters blocked the Onitsha-Owerri Highway, leaving travellers and motorists stranded for hours.
•The school administrative office
The protest was ignited by an alleged omission of the institution’s name on its OND certificate. Some students of the school, who applied for Higher National Diploma (HND) at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) in Effurun, Delta State, were allegedly denied admission because of the omission.
It was gathered that NMTI issued certificates with the name “National Metallurgical Training Institute Certificate” to some students, while others got certificates bearing “Metallurgical Training Institute”.
When the dust settled, one of the protesters lay dead – allegedly from police bullet -prompting the school’s closure.
The victim whose name could not be ascertained at press time was said to be a graduating student. He was allegedly hit by a bullet fired by a policeman attached to the bullion van of a bank in Onitsha.
It was learnt that the policemen, who were accompanying the bullion van, fired shots to disperse the protesting students. But, the protesters remained on the road, and a policeman allegedly shut at them. The victim was hit in the chest.
But the institute is disputing the students’ claim that its certificate is not recognised. Its Deputy Director for Consult, Mr Bode Fakuade, told CAMPUSLIFE that the school certificate could not have been rejected by any institution.
He said most of the students denied admission into HND programmes at the PTI did not meet the requirements. The unsuccessful applicants, he said, completed their OND at NMTI last December and applied for HND in April. This, he said, violated PTI’s admission guideline, which made it compulsory for OND holders to undergo one-year Industrial Training before going for HND programmes.
He said some NMTI students, who finished two years ago and had completed their compulsory Industrial Training, were admitted at PTI.
While admitting that the school has its academic challenges, Fakuade said the unrest may have been instigated by some of the unsuccessful applicants under the guise that other institutions are rejecting NMTI’s certificates.
The management tried to stop the unrest when it got mind of it. The school invited students to a meeting over the matter, but many of them did not turn up.
Fakuade said: “When we learnt about the protest, we quickly made effort to nip it in the bud. We invited the students for a meeting to make clarification about the omission. But, a few of them showed up. We were looking for alternative platform to reach out to the students when we learnt they had blocked the Onitsha-Owerri Highway in protest.”
He said the management closed the school to prevent a further break down of law and order.
Fakuade said: “When the protest broke out, we thought it could be contained by the management. This was why we did not invite the police in the first place. I personally led the school team to plead with the students to leave the highway and meet with the management. They were not ready to listen to us. We got report of a student’s death later. This is why we closed down the school indefinitely.”
Findings by CAMPUSLIFE showed that NMTI was effectively run until 1995 when things changed following the sanctions against Nigeria for the unjust killing of Niger Delta environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others by the late Gen. Sani Abacha junta.
Nigeria’s diplomatic face-off with the European Union then led to the departure of the German teachers at NMTI.
Following their exit, the school has been battling with academic recognition. Although it is still being run by the Federal Government, students are complaining its ownership remains vague.
Established as the Metallurgical Training Institute under the repealed National Steel Council Decree of 1978, it was learnt that the management has been making efforts to reposition the school through a draft bill to the National Assembly for its nationalisation.
The bill, it was learnt, is still pending at the National Assembly. In anticipation of the National Assembly passing the bill, the management added the “National” to the name of the school. With the delay in passing the bill, the National attached to the school’s name became controversial, provoking students’ questions on its ownership and recognition of its certificates.
The school has become covered with weeds when CAMPUSLIFE visited the school last weekend.
Students appealed to the government to consider their plight, urging the passage of the bill that would ensure the school’s nationalisation. They also appealed to the management to re-open the school to enable them complete their programmes.
Residents of Sierra Leone’s capital held a candlelit vigil and celebrations to mark the end of an Ebola epidemic that has killed almost 4,000 people including more than 220 health workers since it began last year.
Following 42 days with no new cases, the West African nation’s epidemic was declared over on Saturday at a ceremony attended by President Ernest Bai Koroma and World Health Organization representative, Anders Nordstrom, Reuters reported.
Thousands of people gathered overnight around the Cotton Tree, a massive tree in the centre of Freetown, for a candlelit vigil organised by women’s groups to pay tribute to health workers who lost their lives.
“They died so we could live,” university student Fatmata said with tears in her eyes. Many of the health workers who died were infected due to inadequate protective equipment and training.
The country’s first confirmed Ebola survivor, Victoria Yillia, told the crowd she was “happy that this disease which almost killed me has finally ended.”
She appealed to authorities not to forget survivors, many of whom have faced social stigma and persistent health problems.
Elsewhere in the city, residents celebrated the end of the epidemic, which forced schools to close, overwhelmed healthcare systems and hurt the local economy.
“We’re happy. I feel free again after a period of bondage in the hands of Ebola,” said trader Joseph Katta as he clutched a pint of beer at a pub in the suburb of Lumley.
Ebola has killed more than 11,300 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since the epidemic was announced in March 2014 and about 28,500 were infected, according to WHO data. Sierra Leone’s death toll was 3,955 people.
Association of Colleges of Medicine of Nigeria’s (ACMN) Chairman Prof. Folasade Ogunsole yesterday expressed sadness at the shortage of the required number of doctors in the country.
She said Nigeria was yet to meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) benchmark of one doctor per 600 persons.
Prof. Ogunsole noted that it would take Nigeria about 101 years to meet the standard, even if all medical graduates did not migrate from the country or remained in the profession.
She spoke in Abuja at the opening of a three-day capacity development programme for Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) Academic Staff in Nigerian universities.
The ACMN chairman explained that the nation would need about 277,000 doctors to meet WHO’s requirements, noting that about 35,000 doctors work in Nigeria.
She said the nation’s medical schools trained more than the number of doctors practising in the country, adding that majority of them were either practising outside the country or had changed profession.
The Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie said NUC has established Best Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) for all its approved courses and continues to review it routinely based on perceived needs and recommendations from stakeholders
•‘States not committing funds to polio eradication’
THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has formally removed Nigeria from the list of polio-endemic countries, meaning the African continent is free of the crippling disease.
Nigeria has reported no cases of polio for 15 months, overcoming obstacles from Islamic extremists, who assassinated vaccinators, as well as rumours that the vaccine was a plot to sterilise Muslims.
Just 20 years ago, Nigeria was recording 1,000 polio cases a year – the highest in the world.
Two countries are left on the list of polio-endemic countries – Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Rotary International last week donated $26.8 million to African countries to ensure the disease doesn’t return, including $6.9 million to Nigeria.
Also yesterday, the WHO expressed concern about lack of financial commitment by some state governments towards eradicating polio. Its Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, spoke yesterday as part of her assessment visit to Nigeria on polio eradication.
She said such neglect was capable of reversing the gains achieved in the fight to permanently eradicate the virus in the country.
She said: “Lately, there has been growing concern among partners that the financial commitment at the state level appears to be declining and I hope it is not because we have achieved this landmark. Some states did not release funds for the recent vaccination rounds and we know that this will negatively affect the quality of the programme.”
Chan, who was represented by WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Rebecca Moet, added: “I would request and encourage federal and state governments to continue meeting the financial commitments to sustain the momentum at polio eradication efforts. We have come a long way and we must until next two years when the country will have been certified free and we can turn attention to other things.”
Two people have fallen ill with Ebola in Guinea after two weeks with no new confirmed cases of the disease in West Africa, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, told a United Nations briefing in Geneva that one case was in Forecariah, western Guinea, and appeared to be linked to a previously known chain of infection, while the other was in the capital Conakry.
Ebola transmission is considered to be over once a locality has gone 42 days without a new case of the disease. The other two countries that were worst hit by the epidemic were Liberia, which was declared transmission free on September 3, and Sierra Leone, which is counting down another 22 days until it is clear, Reuters reported.
The worst outbreak on record has been largely stopped in its tracks after killing more than 11,000 people.
But the WHO has repeatedly warned against prematurely assuming the outbreak is over because the virus could pop up again until the 42 days are over.
“On the bumpy road we keep talking about, the high risk of recurrence, once again we are navigating a few bumps,” Harris said. “Of course we didn’t want it, but we did expect it. Guinea hadn’t got to the stage where we were looking at 42 days.”
Even after that period, Ebola may lurk in the population. This month a study showed the semen of male survivors can harbour the virus for nine months, while a British nurse has fallen critically ill again 10 months after recovering from Ebola.
Lack of access to hygiene could endanger new Development Agenda
A report from the The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF has proven that handwashing with soap is dangerously low in many countries.
This report is in spite of UNICEF’s proven benefits of child health.
The eighth Global Handwashing Day comes less than a month after the United Nations (UN) adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including hygiene for the first time in the global agenda.
One of the SDGs targets is to achieve ‘access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene’ by 2030.
UNICEF says improvements in hygiene must supplement access to water and sanitation, or children will continue to fall victim to easily preventable diseases like diarrhoea.
“Along with drinking water and access to toilets, hygiene (particularly, handwashing with soap) is the essential third leg of the stool holding up the Goal on water and sanitation,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, Global Head of UNICEF’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programmes.
“From birth (when the unwashed hands of birth attendants can transmit dangerous pathogens) right through babyhood, school and beyond, handwashing is crucial for a child’s health. It is one of the cheapest, simplest and the most effective health interventions we have.”
Sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest child mortality rates globally, also has particularly low levels of handwashing. The latest report from UNICEF and WHO says that in 38 countries in the region with available data, levels are at best 50 per cent.
Even health care facilities often lack places for handwashing. Some 42 per cent of them in World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Africa Region have no water source available within 500 meters.
Meanwhile, according to the UN’s latest estimates, over 800 of the approximately 1,400 child deaths from diarrhoea each day can be attributed to inadequate water, sanitation or hygiene. Infants in the first month of life are particularly vulnerable to diseases transmitted by unwashed hands.
A number of activities around the world will mark Global Handwashing Day and aim to teach the importance of handwashing with soap especially to children. Which are as follows:
Democratic Republic of the Congo: A national drawing competition on handwashing in schools will reach 300,000 students in 1,500 schools; and messages will reach 3,000,000 people in 5,500 villages.
Haiti: A soccer match (Clean Hands vs. Dirty Hands) is planned, as well as a parade, community radio spots, songs, poems, a drawing competition and handwashing demonstrations in public places.
Kiribati: All 94 Primary Schools, 24 Junior Secondary Schools and 16 Senior Secondary Schools will take part in group hand washing. Students will design posters and banners, and promote handwashing in marches, song, dancing, drama, speech, poems and art.
Sri Lanka: The Government of Sri Lanka is hosting a week-long learning exchange among schools to establish best practice for programmes across Asia and the Pacific. UNICEF Ambassador for South Asia, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, will be involved in promoting the importance of handwashing.
Viet Nam: 8,000 children will participate in an event aimed at helping them to encourage their families to practice handwashing with soap.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday said no new Ebola infections were reported in West Africa in the past week, bringing Sierra Leone closer to its goal of becoming Ebola-free in early November.
It was the first week without any new cases since the epidemic started in March 2014.
“Sierra Leone has seen no new cases in three weeks.
“The government would declare the end of the epidemic on Nov. 8 if the situation continued,’’ WHO press officer, Margaret Harris, told newsmen.
While Guinea also recorded a week free of infections, 500 people who had been in contact with Ebola patients are still being monitored.
In addition, health workers have been unable to locate several people who pose a high risk because they had been in close contact with sick people.
“These things make us very wary,’’ Harris said.
Liberia was the third country affected by the outbreak, as it was declared Ebola-free in early September.
Report says since the first infections in West Africa in late 2013, over 28,400 people have fallen ill and nearly 11,300 have died from the viral hemorrhagic fever in the region.
The World Health Organization on Saturday removed Nigeria from the polio-endemic list.
With this development, Nigeria, which in 2012, accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide, has recorded a major breakthrough in its fight against polio.
The country last reported a case of wild poliovirus in July 24, 2014, and a full 12 months have passed without a fresh case of the paralysing disease.
Only two countries – Pakistan and Afghanistan are still on the polio-endemic list and WHO has assured it will support their efforts to join list of nations that had been declared free of the disease.
“This success is the result of a concerted effort by all levels of government, civil society, religious leaders and tens of thousands of dedicated health workers. More than 200,000 volunteers across the country repeatedly immunized more than 45 million children under the age of five years, to ensure that no child would suffer from this paralysing disease.
“Innovative approaches, such as increased community involvement and the establishment of Emergency Operations Centres at the national and state level, have also been pivotal to Nigeria’s success.
“The interruption of wild poliovirus transmission in Nigeria would have been impossible without the support and commitment of donors and development partners. Their continued support, along with continued domestic funding from Nigeria, will be essential to keep Nigeria and the entire region polio-free,” the WHO said in a statement on Saturday.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), the public-private partnership leading the effort to eradicate polio, described Nigeria’s removal from the polio-endemic list as a “historic achievement” in global health.
The Director-General of WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, in a statement urged the Nigerian government to continue with the efforts that got the country off the polio-endemic list.
Dr. Chan, who is also a member of GPEI, canvassed support for Pakistan and Afghanistan in their efforts to join the polio free world.
“The outstanding commitment and efforts that got Nigeria off the endemic list must continue, to keep Africa polio-free. We must now support the efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan so they soon join the polio-free world,” she stated.
The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Ado Muhammad, who also spoke on the development, said, “We Nigerians are proud today. With local innovation and national persistence, we have beaten polio. We know our vigilance and efforts must continue in order to keep Nigeria polio-free.”
Marta Ruedas, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said on Thursday in Kigali that two men were killed in an ambush by unidentified gunmen on aid workers’ vehicle in Sudan’s West Darfur State.
Ruedas said the attack on the vehicle which was carrying representatives of the State’s Ministry of Health and World Health Organization (WHO) took place on Tuesday in Kerinik locality, near the border with Chad.
Ruedas said the aid workers were returning from a mission to ascertain whether guinea-worm disease is still present in Sudan.
She said the men, a driver and a security official were killed instantly, while the two Ministry of Health staffers and a WHO doctor in the vehicle were unharmed.
Ruedas, who strongly condemned the fatal attack, added that the assailants also stole the car.
“Insecurity continues to hamper the operations of the courageous humanitarian workers in Darfur, where over 2.3 million vulnerable people need some form of humanitarian assistance.
“Yet humanitarian workers are confronted by danger on a daily basis,” she said
