On a Saturday morning in Lagos, several volunteers in white “Run Lagos” t-shirts gathered for an air pollution awareness walk. They split into small groups and filed through the narrow streets, placards in hand. One read, “Air Is Free But Polluted Air Leads To Health And Climate Change Expenses.” The walk coordinators carried portable air […] Continue reading ->
LAGOS – On 6 January, literary icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie lost one of her 21-month-old twin boys at Euracare, an elite private hospital in Lagos, Nigeria. Adichie alleges “criminal negligence”, specifically an overdose of propofol and oxygen deprivation, leading to the death of her son, Nkanu Nnamdi. The hospital maintains it followed “international standards” and […] Continue reading ->
Most countries’ climate action plans refer to the health benefits of adaptation and mitigation strategies, such as reduced air pollution, but few actually track them. And as World Environment Day is observed Thursday, global climate commitments remain extraordinarily weak. Only 21 countries out of the 195 parties to the UN Paris Agreement have submitted updated […] Continue reading ->
LAGOS, Nigeria – At an HIV treatment clinic in Lagos, patients are seated in worn pews, waiting for their turn to receive their six-month supply of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Without subsidies, the cost of these drugs could reach $4,500 a month, but with the support of foreign donors such as the US President’s Emergency Plan […] Continue reading ->
Fifteen-year-old Mathias Ofoke is one of four children in his family born with type 1 diabetes. Whenever his symptoms worsened, he was taken to the nearest primary healthcare (PHC) center where he was repeatedly treated for malaria. It wasn’t until February, when a non-governmental organization (NGO), Abby Cares Foundation, organized a clinical outreach at Ezza […] Continue reading ->
The atmosphere at the Sokoto Noma Hospital, named after the city and state in north-west Nigeria bordering the Republic of Niger, is serene. The buildings are modest structures painted in soft, earthy tones. Several large trees form lush green canopies, providing shade from the afternoon sun. Huddled under the shade trees, caregivers — mainly mothers […] Continue reading ->
In resource-restricted countries like Nigeria, parents of children with special needs, particularly mothers, bear the entire burden of care. In an unexpected turn of events in early 2015, Modupe Famodun’s baby son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. A neurologist at the Federal Neuropsychiatry Hospital (FNPH) in Lagos in South-West Nigeria, had been strolling down the […] Continue reading ->