Nigeria inaugurates MNCH Committee

From 2nd on left: Director, Family Health Department, Dr. Adebimpe Adebiyi; Ag. Director - General, NAFADAC, Mrs. Yetunde Oni and  Hon. Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, during the inauguration in Abuja.

The Committee to help coordinate the improvement of the quality of healthcare for Mothers, Newborn and Children in Nigeria have been inaugurated by the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire.

Nigeria is one of the first wave of countries to be part of the network to improve quality of healthcare. 

At the inauguration of the steering and technical committee Monday 6 February, 2017 in Abuja, Ehanire appreciated the World Health Organization for accepting Nigeria’s admission into the WHO-led Network towards improving quality of healthcare for mothers, newborns and children.

He reiterated that Nigeria’s support of the WHO vision where ‘every pregnant woman and newborn receives quality healthcare throughout, childbirth and the postnatal period’ as a country.

The Nigerian Government's commitment towards developing health care strategies and planning are  in line WHO recommendation.

Members of the Steering Committee include the Minister of Health; Minister of State for Health and Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development. Others are Ministers of Finance, Agriculture, Education, Water Resources, Environment, and Information and Culture. 

They also include the Permanent Secretary of Federal Ministry of  Health; Directors of the Department of Health Services, Family Health Department, and Health Planning Research and Statistics. The Executive Secretaries of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and National Health Insurance Scheme among others are also listed.

The Terms of Reference of the Steering Committee, among others is to provide high level leadership for coordination of quality of care (QoC) interventions for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH), in Nigeria. 

Other expectations of the technical committee  include to contribute to the development of a national quality of care strategies of health services and develop an action plan/road map to improve national quality of care of health services for RMNCAH in Nigeria.

In her welcome remark, the Permanent Secretary, FMOH, Mrs.  Binta Adamu Bello, who was represented by the Director, Hospital Services, Dr. Wapada Balami, said  the inauguration was coming at a time when several plans are being made for Nigeria to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

NIH study says Aspirin may help prevent pregnancy loss in women with high inflammation

A daily low dose of aspirin may help a subgroup of women, those who have previously lost a pregnancy, to successfully conceive and carry a pregnancy to term, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. 

The women who benefited from the aspirin treatment had high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a substance in the blood indicating system-wide inflammation, which aspirin is thought to counteract. The study appears in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 

Researchers at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) analyzed data originally obtained from the Effects of Aspirin in Gestation and Reproduction (EAGeR) trial. The trial sought to determine if daily low-dose aspirin could prevent subsequent pregnancy loss among women who had one or two prior losses. 

For the current study, researchers classified the women into 3 groups: low CRP (below .70 mg per liter of blood), mid CRP (from .70 to 1.95) and high CRP (at or above 1.95). Women within each group received either daily low-dose aspirin or a placebo. In their analysis, researchers found no significant differences in birth rates between those receiving aspirin and those receiving placebo in both the low CRP and mid CRP groups. 

For the high CRP group, those taking the placebo had the lowest rate of live birth at 44 percent, while those taking daily aspirin had a live-birth rate of 59 percent — a 35-percent increase. Aspirin also appeared to reduce CRP levels in the high CRP group when measured during weeks 8, 20, and 36 of pregnancy.  

The authors concluded that more research is needed to confirm the findings and to examine the potential influence of inflammation in becoming pregnant and maintaining pregnancy.

Navy medicine launches mobile app for sailors, marines, families

Surgeon General of the Navy and Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Vice Adm. Matthew Nathan, left, Cmdr. Peter Shumaker, chairman of Dermatology and Vietnamese delegates observe a procedure in Naval Medical Center San Diego's (NMCSD) Bioskills Simulation Training Center. The Vietnamese delegates are working alongside NMCSD staff during the 4th Annual Project C.A.R.E. (Comprehensive Aesthetic Restorative Effort) Multidisciplinary Training Summit to discuss cutting-edge treatment paradigms and embrace emerging technologies in a world-class setting to advance the care of wounded service members and other traumatically injured patients. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Zachary Bell (Released) 131204-N-MB306-082

Navy Medicine announced the launch of a new enterprise-wide mobile app for Sailors, Marines, and their families, this week.
A statement from the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Public Affairs, said the app provides users with access to military treatment facility locations, leadership information, Department of Defense hotlines, Relay Health, and links to Navy Medicine social media and other health resources. 
"Every day we leverage mobile technology for a greater portion of the things we need and want to do; our Sailors, Marines and their families deserve this same level of convenience from Navy Medicine," said Mark Beckner, chief digital officer, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. 
Navy Medicine will continue to update the app with new capabilities to improve functionality throughout 2017.
"We will continue to grow the app based on the needs and wants of our Sailors, Marines, and their families," said Beckner. "Our goal is to improve the overall Navy Medicine experience and improve convenience for our patients through technology." 
The Navy Medicine app is available for download on the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. 
Navy Medicine is a global health care network of 63,000 personnel which provides health care support to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, their families, and veterans in high operational-tempo environments, at expeditionary medical facilities, medical treatment facilities, hospitals, clinics, hospital ships, and research units around the world.

Scientists prove new approach to polio vaccine works

Electron micrograph of live poliovirus particles (left) and empty particles (potential VLP vaccine) (right).

Polio is on the verge of being eradicated world-wide, but even when it has been officially declared as extinct as a disease, governments will need to continue to vaccinate to ensure against it recurring.

Now scientists at the University of Leeds have identified new ways to provide vaccines against polio, which do not require the growth of live virus for their manufacture.

Despite the success of vaccines produced from ‘virus-like particles’ (VLPs) for hepatitis B and human papilloma viruses, poliovirus VLPs have proved to be too unstable to make practical vaccines.

They have found a new way to modify these VLPs, also known as ‘empty capsids’ by identifying mutations which make their structures sufficiently stable to act as vaccines.

The empty capsids change shape when warmed and become unusable as vaccines, but the mutations identified in this research prevent these damaging changes.

Using current technology, the production of vaccine requires the growth of enormous quantities of live virus, which is then chemically killed, thus presenting a dangerous security risk of virus escaping into the environment.

These new stabilised VLPs are suitable as replacements for the current killed poliovirus vaccines and can be produced in ways that do not require the growth of live virus.

“Continuing to vaccinate after polio has been eradicated is essential to ensure against the disease recurring, but there are significant biosafety concerns about current production methods," said David Rowlands, Professor of Molecular Virology and co-leader of the study at the University.

“Our new method of creating the vaccine has been proven to work in lab conditions and on top of that we’ve proved it’s actually more stable than existing vaccines.

“The improved stability of these modified VLPs means that they can be produced using bioengineering techniques without involving the growth of live virus”.

This study was a lab experiment, which shows stabilised VLPs to be effective in a controlled environment. Further research using animals (rats and mice) is planned, as part of the essential process of making sure the new VLPs are safe and effective for use in humans.

Co-leader of the study, Professor Nicola Stonehouse, from the University of Leeds said: “The international drive to eradicate polio using existing vaccines continues, but methods need to be found to maintain vaccination safely as insurance after it appears to have been eradicated. This is when our approach will come into its own.

“Further research is needed to refine them more but we are confident they will work for all three forms of polio. After that we need to find a way to manufacture them cost effectively on a large scale.”

The research has been funded through a $1.5 million World Health Organisation grant to a consortium led by Leeds and including the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich, the University of Oxford, University of Reading, and the Pirbright Institute.