Cholera kills 11 in Kano, other health stories last week

Cholera kills 11 in Kano, other health stories last week

Cholera kills 11 in Kano, other health stories last week

Only 24% infants exclusively breastfed in Nigeria – Health Ministry

The Federal Ministry of Health says in spite of the health and economic benefits of exclusive breastfeeding to mother and child, only 24 per cent of infants are exclusively breastfed in Nigeria.

Chimay Thompson, the Assistant Director, Nutrition Division, Family Health Department in the ministry said exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life without water, infant formula, liquid or food has proven to save lives, improve women and children’s health and boots lifelong productivity.

However, Mr Thompson said millions of mothers and infants were now losing the benefits as only about 23.7 per cent of infants less than six months were exclusively being breastfed.

“The nationally accepted document which is the multiple indicator cluster survey states that we are presently at 23.7 per cent on exclusive breastfeeding in the country.”

WHO confirms strain of latest Ebola outbreak

The Ebola outbreak in Congo is confirmed to be the Zaire strain of the virus and vaccinations of health workers has started, a senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Peter Salama, WHO deputy director for emergency preparedness and response, gave the results of genetic sequencing in a tweet saying that analysis showed it was a new outbreak in North Kivu province.

The experimental vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV, which is manufactured by Merck, proved successful during its first wide-scale usage against an outbreak of Zaire virus on the other side of Congo in the North-west that was declared over less than two weeks ago