Increased susceptibility to infections due to vitamin A deficiency (VAD), is a leading cause of about 80,000 deaths among Nigerian children annually.
This figure was provided in Dutse, by Jigawa State coordinator of the National Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mr Abdulsalam Ozigis, at an event organised by the agency to discuss the role of regulatory agencies in the elimination of the deficiency.
He said the UNICEF/MI report on minerals and vitamin deficiency in Nigeria revealed that 80,000 children die each year in Nigeria from increased susceptibility to infections due to vitamin A deficiency, adding that 25 per cent of Nigerian children are growing without enough immunity. This, according to the report, leads to frequent illnesses and poor growth.
He also said no fewer than 30,000 children under the age of five years have died over the years, directly as a result of Vitamin A Deficiency. This, he said, represents about 25 per cent of total deaths within the years in which they died.
Ozigis said high incidents of deaths directly and indirectly linked to VAD, informed NAFDAC’s commitment to the vitamin A fortification programme.
He said adequate measures are being taken to avoid frequent illnesses and poor growth in children, which is why the Agency directed that all edibles must be fortified by manufacturers at point of manufacture, adding that a recently launched "progress for children report card on nutrition" by UNICEF, showed that Nigeria is moving at a very slow pace of 2.2per cent a year in the fortification programme.
He said the report also showed that 29 per cent out of the 43 per cent under-weight children in the West/Central African region is attributable to Nigeria alone.
Ozigis said NAFDAC was committed to reversing this trend urgently.
According to him, the overall goal of the agency is to reduce the mortality and morbidity rates among children in the 6 to 59 months age bracket, and contribute positively towards the achievement of part of the country’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG's).
Vitamin A, a fat-soluble vitamin, is involved in the formation and maintenance of healthy skin, hair, and mucous membranes. Vitamin A helps to see in dim light and is necessary for proper bone growth, tooth development, and reproduction.

Curtesy Thisdayonline.com (a Nigerian News Media)

Hi Friends, last week Friday, a US TV giant ABC, showed the world a report on the rate of internet crime in Nigeria. The report was so shocking and very disturbing.

Herein is as it is reported by one of the Nigerian daily papers "Punch News", in their Monday edition.
www.punchontheweb.com

"American TV network says Lagos is big for nothing"
By Our correspondent
Published: Monday, 11 Dec 2006

AS far as a leading American TV network is concerned, Lagos is a big for nothing and crime-ridden city with 20 million people mostly illiterate and poverty stricken, Empowered Newswire reports.

That was how ABC, one of America‘s three biggest TV networks, described Lagos in an investigative 20/20 report last Friday evening.

Only last week, Nigeria‘s Information Minister, Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr, and two other collegaues visited the United States capital to launch the Federal Government‘s Heart of Africa, which is meant to address the image problem of Nigeria in the US

In a stinging report on 419 fraud among Nigerians at home and in the United States, the ABC report-20/20-an investigative programme broadcast on Friday even played parts of a musical video and soundtrack of the movie, ”The Master” which depicted how 419 operatives conduct their fraud.

The report played clips from the film and from the musical video, even drawing from the words used in the musical that 419 victims were the ”muguns”, and the 419 operatives the masters. The report blamed the film and the music video for celebrating 419 and treating their kingpins ”folk heroes.” The report said the film mocks the ”muguns.”

The programme was broadcast on Friday evening, getting US-based Nigerians worried and troubled.

A Nigerian Lawyer in the US said by the next day he had received several calls from his clients and partners asking questions about the report on Nigeria.

Others feared that on resumption of work on Monday, their colleagues would bombard them with all kinds of questions and even negative attitude as a result of the ABC report.

Presented by Brian Ross, the report which took about 30 minutes including commercial breaks, presented how Nigerian 419 agents in the US lay prey for their American victims, showing scenes in Washington DC, Dallas and California where the ABC investigative teams confronted some of them on camera having disguised as willing victims of the 419 game.

At first, the 419 operatives were not aware they were being filmed by undercover cameras. Once they knew they were on films, they turned apologetic and repentant.

The ABC report did not show whether the investigative team turned the 419 operatives to the police.

But the most telling part of the report was the ABC‘s team‘s visit to Lagos, which the report said, had a population of 20 million. Showing parts of Oshodi, the report described Lagos as a ”crime-ridden disgrace of a city.”

Before visiting Nigeria, the ABC news team had played along with the 419 operatives and promised to send advance cash of $12,000 to Lagos after receiving a letter from the email that promised them $25m once they send the advance fee.

The ABC team parked monopoly paper money in a DHL box and sent it to Lagos. They arrived with their teams and proceeded to a DHL office where someone had come to claim the mail and there the ABC team confronted the 419 accomplice who had by now picked up the box mailed by the American reporters from the US.

The ABC report also showed how 419 operatives used Internet cafes in Lagos to send mass e-mails to Americans preying on what the report accurately described as the ”greed” of the Americans themselves.

Although the report said there were scams all over the world from Europe to Nigeria, this report focussed primarily on what it called ”Nigerian scams.”

Only last week, Nweke while speaking with Nigerian press in the US, said Nigeria continued to be unfairly profiled.

Although he and Nigerians abroad acknowledged the existence of 419 operatives at home and in the US, they still argued that such Nigerians were being isolated in a world where criminals minds are not the exclusive afflictions of one country.

Please read this report to know the latest effects of malaria fever on the spread of HIV infection in Nigeria & sub-Saharan Africa.

Despite intensified efforts to curb malaria in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa the tropical scourge could be contributing to the spread of HIV in the sub region by making carriers more likely to pass it on to their sexual partners.
Scientists have discovered that the amount of virus in the blood increases by about ten times when HIV-positive people are also infected with malaria, raising the chances of transmission by sexual intercourse.
High rates of HIV may also be having a reciprocal influence on the prevalence of malaria in the region, as the virus’ compromising effect on the immune system leaves people more vulnerable to infection by the parasite.
Related research findings, by a team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, in Seattle, USA, and published in the journal of Science, suggest that efforts to control each of the two most lethal infectious conditions in the African continent can benefit the other.
In the current year, it's estimated that HIV/Aids will kill 2.8 million people worldwide, 2.1 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria causes between 1 million and 2.7 million deaths a year, 90 per cent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tens of thousands of new HIV cases can probably be attributed to malaria infections, while millions of cases of malaria develop because of immune system impairments related to HIV, the research scientists revealed.
Laith Abu-Raddad, one of the research team leaders, said: “While HIV/Aids is predominantly spreading through sexual intercourse, this biological co-factor induced by malaria has contributed considerably to the spread of HIV by increasing HIV transmission probability per sexual act.”
James Kublin, his colleague, said: “In turn, the weakening of the immune system by HIV infection has fuelled a rise in adult malaria infection rates and may have facilitated the expansion of malaria in Africa.”
In the study, the researchers used a mathematical model designed by Dr Abu-Raddad based on HIV and malaria co-infections in Malawi to measure the effects of the two conditions on one another.
A detailed study of the town of Kisumu, in Kenya, was then conducted, which revealed that five per cent of HIV infections were attributable to the way in which malaria increases viral load and that 10 per cent of adult malaria episodes are related to HIV.
This translates into 8,500 extra HIV infections and 980,000 further malaria cases among adults.
Dr. Kublin said it was possible that other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and genital herpes, might also be contributing to the spread of HIV. “We can reduce HIV/Aids transmission by concomitantly treating HIV/Aids coinfections with malaria as well as other diseases,” he said.
On his part, Geoff Garnett, Professor of Microparasite Epidemiology at Imperial College London, said: “This is an interesting synthesis of what we know about malaria and HIV, showing the potential of one infection to allow another to establish within a population.
"We need to be careful in how we use the findings as many other behaviours, infections and environmental factors can similarly influence the diseases.”
Further according to him, “Particularly interesting was the small effect of interventions targeted at dual infections. It appears that interventions targeted broadly at both HIV and malaria are still needed.”

By Louis Achi with agency reports, Thisdayonline.com, 12.10.2006

"There are those who have pride in themselves, and those who don't like to work. But look at me! I do the hard work."
Kimani Nganga Maruge; 86 year old Kenyan enrolled in primary School.

For further readings visit: http://www.actionaidusa.org/un_student_home.php

THE quest for gender equality in the country received a boost yesterday with the launch of a N5.1 million ($500,000) pilot programme known as Gender Equality Support Pilot Project (GESPP).

The programme, backed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), is also designed in part to revive the strategic plan on gender in Nigeria.

Launching the GESPP, which is CIDA's situational assessment on gender and acts as a gender tool kit for the country, Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Maryam Ciroma, said the country was about realising the dream of a gender-sensitive society as a way of releasing the creative energy of the people from the cradle years to productive age, and of achieving a fulfilled class of senior citizens.

According to her, a simultaneous, massive wave of training has been embarked upon by the Ministry of Women Affairs in response to the need to sensitise women towards making contributions to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The minister, who spoke through the Director of Women Affairs, Dr. Habiba Lawal, also made clarifications on the utilisation of funds received by the ministry for the MDGs programme.

She said: " Yes, the Ministry of Women Affairs is one of the recipients of the MDG funding for Nigeria. Field works at various levels have commenced with it, as well as the training programme. The ministry has so far trained 25 personnel in Tanzania, Uganda and elsewhere on gender mainstreaming and management. Two persons from each state and in the geo-political zones of the country have been selected for the initial phase. The training still going on."

In his opening remarks, Head of Cooperation, CIDA, Mr. Andrew Spezowka, noted that GESPP had a unique feature in that it was designed to address "the disparities between women and men brought on by systemic and structural gender inequalities in development. It is also designed to strengthen the capacity of the government of Nigeria and key stakeholders to design and implement policies, programmes and instruments that promote gender equality with a focus on CIDA's priority sectors of health and governance"

With the aid of slides, a situational assessment report on gender and tools was presented by Esther Eghobamien.

She noted, among others, that efforts to bridge the gaps of disparities of opportunities available to men vis-a-vis their female counterparts have always been seen as "feminine patronage plans, which have not been endemic, forcing us to plan randomly in Nigeria."