Search

The ICRC is one of the oldest international organizations in the world and since its establishment until now the ICRC has experienced many obstacles, but in reality the existence of the ICRC as an international organization has so far remained undeniable. The main objective of this research is to examine the role of the ICRC in dealing with internal violence in Nigeria. The protection provided by the ICRC to victims of the Boko Haram case is based on the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol II 1997 and customary international law. This legal research methodology draws data from books, journals, ICRC annual reports, websites on the internet, and other relevant sources. By providing protection to the victim of Boko Haram, the ICRC has provided several humanitarian and such as; donation of food and water, health care, care for displaced persons and promotion of international humanitarian law. The ICRC's role in assisting non-international armed conflict in Nigeria also needs the help of all parties and the war activist in respecting international humanitarian law other related sources. Nigeria's struggle against the jihadist group Boko Harm has not yet been settled, although the government has declared the rebels defeated. More soldiers died in seemingly endless wars, but the military kept their deaths.

To compare administrative coverage data with results from household coverage surveys for vitamin A supplementation (VAS) and deworming campaigns conducted during 2010-2015 in 12 African countries.Paired t-tests examined differences between administrative and survey coverage for 52 VAS and 34 deworming dyads. Independent t-tests measured VAS and deworming coverage differences between data sources for door-to-door and fixed-site delivery strategies and VAS coverage differences between 6- to 11-month and 12- to 59-month age group.For VAS, administrative coverage was higher than survey estimates in 47 of 52 (90%) campaign rounds, with a mean difference of 16.1% (95% CI: 9.5-22.7; P 0.001). For deworming, administrative coverage exceeded survey estimates in 31 of 34 (91%) comparisons, with a mean difference of 29.8% (95% CI: 16.9-42.6; P 0.001). Mean ± SD differences in coverage between administrative and survey data were 12.2% ± 22.5% for the door-to-door delivery strategy and 25.9% ± 24.7% for the fixed-site model (P = 0.06). For deworming, mean ± SD differences in coverage between data sources were 28.1% ± 43.5% and 33.1% ± 17.9% for door-to-door and fixed-site distribution, respectively (P = 0.64). VAS administrative coverage was higher than survey estimates in 37 of 49 (76%) comparisons for the 6- to 11-month age group and 45 of 48 (94%) comparisons for the 12- to 59-month age group.Reliance on health facility data alone for calculating VAS and deworming coverage may mask low coverage and prevent measures to improve programmes. Countries should periodically validate administrative coverage estimates with population-based methods.

Background: In rural communities where men have power to determine what their wives do or fail to do, male involvement in birth preparedness reduces the delays that commonly lead to maternal and perinatal deaths. We conducted a cross-sectional study to identify determinants of male involvement in birth preparedness in two rural northern Nigerian communities.Methodology: A total of 411 married men selected through multi-stage sampling were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Association between variables was assessed using bivariate and multivariate analyses at p

Background: Malaria is endemic throughout Nigeria. Majority of Nigerians live in rural areas where subsistence farming is their main occupation. Most of them live below poverty line, earning less than $1.25 a day. In rural communities, many household factors constitute barriers to effective malaria prevention and control.Objective: This study was conducted to assess the factors that constitute barriers to prevention and control of malaria in Gimba village, a rural community in Soba Local Government area of Kaduna State, Nigeria.Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study conducted during community diagnosis posting of final year medical students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in July 2012. An interviewer- administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the total population of household heads in the community.Results: Of the 686 respondents, most were farmers (69.7%). In terms of malaria prevention, most of the households (81.8%) own a mosquito net, but in 40.8% of the households, no member slept under a mosquito net the night before the survey. A significant proportion of the households (32.9%) use “otapiapia”, a cheap, unpatented, locally made pesticide as mosquito repellent, while 20.7% of the households do not use any method for malaria prevention. Respondents that had formal education, or with less than 5 children were more likely to use malaria preventive methods compared to those with no formal education or with more than 5 children. Regarding malaria treatment, most of the households, 73%, treated their last cases of presumptive malaria at chemist shops.Conclusion: Some socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and household practices militate against effective malaria prevention and control in the study area. Health Education and Socioeconomic Development in rural areas are recommended for successful malaria prevention and control.Keywords: Household, Barriers, Malaria, Prevention, Rural Community, Nigeria

Background: Malaria is endemic in Nigeria and there is a vicious cycle between it and poverty. It contributes towards poverty, while poverty influences the risk of its infection. Majority of Nigerians, 70%, live in rural areas, below poverty line. They earn less than $1.25 a day. Subsistence farming is their main occupation. The cost of malaria treatment represents a significant portion of their income.Objective: This study was conducted to assess the direct cost of presumptive malaria treatment on households in Gimba Village of Soba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria.Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study conducted during community diagnosis posting of final year medical students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in July 2012. An interviewer- administered questionnaire was used to collect data from household heads.Results: Most of the respondents (69.7%) were farmers. A large proportion of the respondents (47.3%) earned between N10,000.00 to N20,000.00. monthly. The average household size was 6 while the average number of presumptive malaria cases per household per year was 13. On average, the direct cost of presumptive malaria treatment alone, consumes 4.9 % of the annual income of household heads. There was a statistically significant association between cost of treatment and place of seeking treatment (p

Background: An equitable health care system that responds to the needs of its people is important to break the cycle of poverty and ill-health. However, rising health care cost, and the preponderance of user fees to finance health care have often limited access to needed health services.Study Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was employed, using a pretested, semi-structured, intervieweradministered questionnaire.Results: The study was carried out among 188 respondents. Majority (88.2%) of the respondents were within the agegroup 20-49 years, about two-thirds 63.8% were married and about half (42.8%) had family size between 5 and 9. The study revealed that about a quarter (26.1%) experienced hardship in settling their medical bills. While one-third (31.1%) had to sell their assets, about half (45.2%) had to secure loan while 16.6% had to resort to begging because of hardship encountered in settling the medical bills. Furthermore, of those who sold theirs asset; 46.2% sold their farmlands, 38.5% sold a piece of land, while 16.3% sold their vehicles.Conclusion: This study has revealed that inhabitants of Samaru community experience hardship in settling their medical bills. Consequently, innovative strategies like deferment of payment and fee exemption, enrolling into community-based health insurance schemes as well as voluntary contributory health insurance schemes etc need to be considered, in order to alleviate the hardship in settling the medical bills.Keywords: Financial, hardship, settling, medical bills.

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death amongwomen and the commonest female malignancy world- wide. If detected early, it is often successfully treated but when detected late it is often fatal. Therefore early detection is the key to survival. Breast-Self Examination (BSE) is an inexpensivemethod for early detection of breast cancer. Thus, knowledge and consistent practice could protect women from severe morbidity and mortality due to breast cancer. The objective of the study was to determine the knowledge and practice of BSE amongst female undergraduate students in a Northern Nigerian University. A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among the female undergraduate students.Multistage sampling technique was employed to interview 345 students using structured self administered questionnaires. The result showed that 87.3% of the respondents were aware of breast cancer. However, a significant proportion 20.0% did not know its aetiology. On the knowledge and practice of breast self examination, about three-quarters (74%) confirmed that they had heard of it while 55.0% confirmed practicing it. However, no association was established between the knowledge and practice of BSE and the level of study of the respondents. In conclusion, awareness of BSEamong respondents was high while the practice was fairly good. There is therefore the need for more health education in order to improve the level of practice among the students. IEC means such as; Campus radio, pamphlets, posters and peer group educators would be of immense help.

Background: Teenage hawking has become a topical issue globally because of the unhealthy circumstances which these teenagers are exposed to, making them prone to various forms of abuse. This is a study of problems of teenage hawking in Sabon-Gari LGA of Kaduna State, Nigeria, to determine the cause, forms and hazards of teenage hawking.Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. Two hundred and seven (207) respondents were interviewed through interviewer-administered questionnaires and data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software.Results: More than half of the respondents (59.4%) were females, about one-third (33.8%) were aged 13-14years. The main reasons for hawking were parental wish (57%), desire to make extra pocket money (21.3%) and poverty (8.7%). The hazards to which the teenage hawkers were exposed include injuries (71.5%), fights (21.3%) and sexual harassments (17.4%).Conclusion: Parental wish was the main contributing factor to teenage hawking, followed by the desire to make extra money. Enlightenment and income generating activities for the parents/guardians and the general populace were recommended.Keywords: Female, hawking, money, parental, problems

Background: Lack of essential drugs is a major problem facing Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities in Nigeria. In an attempt to respond to this problem, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) office in Abuja, Nigeria, distributed Essential Drugs and supplies to some PHC centers for free distribution to patients. Aim: This study aims to assess the effects of free drugs on utilization of health services and the types of drugs that were most dispensed during the free treatment exercise at Yakawada Comprehensive Health Centre (YCHC), Kaduna, Nigeria. Methods: A retrospective descriptive study conducted at YCHC. Free drugs were donated to the centre by MDG Office in Abuja. These were freely distributed to patients over a three month period, May to July 2010. Patient health records for the three months were obtained and compared with those obtained during the same period of the previous year of 2009. Results: A 59.8% increased utilization of the health centre during the three months period was recorded against the previous year. antimalarials, analgesics, antihelminthics and haematinics were the most dispensed drugs. Demands for some of the supplied essential drugs and supplies were very low due to low prevalence of the diseases or conditions they were meant for. Conclusion: Provision of free medications increased utilization of the centre‟s health services during which some categories of drugs were most dispensed. It is recommended that the most dispensed drugs in each L.G.A should be included among a „free drug list‟ for the respective L.G.A. Key words: Free drugs, provision, utilization, health services, rural, Nigeria

Background: unnecessary injection is one of the contributory factors of unsafe injection, generation of additional injection waste hazards and transmission of blood borne pathogens the situation was assessed in this study among primary health care workers in Katsina State between February and July 2012. Objectives: To determine the pattern of unnecessary injection prescription practice and to evaluate the effect of health education in improving rational injection prescription among health workers in Katsina State. Methodology: A quasi experimental design was used to study 275 primary health care workers among the study group and control groups with 222 prescription slips selected randomly on exit from consultation rooms. Self administered questionnaires and observation checklists modified from WHO tool for injection safety assessment were pretested and administered to the study participants determined through sample size calculation and systematic sampling selection. Data collected was entered and analyzed using SPSS Version 17. Results: The mean age of the workers was 38.2±8 years and 36.4±7.7 years among the study and control groups respectively. Most of the health workers practice prescription, the mean injection prescribed 49.0±38.7 pre intervention and 24.3±24.3 post intervention among the study group. Poly pharmacy with an average of 6.0 drugs pre intervention to 5.69 drugs post intervention remained among the workers. The mean injection prescribed reduced from 2.009±1.6 to 1.792±1.6 post intervention (p=0.001),most of the prescriptions issued by the study participants have significantly improved in writing full name of drugs, dose of medication, dose interval and legible hand writing (p

reported low levels of awareness and practice of breast self examination as an important method of prevention. Breast self examination is a cost-effective method of early detection of cancer of the breast especially in resource poor countries. We assessed knowledge and practice of breast-self examination (BSE) among female undergraduate students of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Method: In this study, knowledge and practice of BSE were examined among 221 female students aged16 – 28 years old studying at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria using self administered questionnaires. Results: It was found that despite nearly three quarter of the respondents (87.7%) had heard of BSE, only 19.0% of them were performing this examination monthly. Regarding the sources of information about BSE among respondents, media was found to be most common followed by health workers accounting for 45.5% and 32.2% respectively. Regular performance of BSE was significantly correlatedwith duration of stay in the University (X2 = 81.9, df = 3, P < .05) and family history of breast cancer (X2 = 17.4, df = 2, P < .05). Conclusion: We observed a disparity between high levels of knowledge of BSE compared to a low level of practice. Public health education using the media could significantly reduce the knowledge- practice gap and early detection of breast lum.

Background: The use of Marijuana is on the increase worldwide especially among adolescents and youths. Marijuana smoking has gained a foothold in our environment because of peer group influence, accessibility and availability. Its medico-social effects could ruin the life and future of our youths. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence and the factors that influence secondary school students in Zaria LGA to smoke and the effects on academic performance. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was employed to generate data among secondary schoolstudents. A multi-stage sampling technique was used. Data was collected with the use of a structured, pre tested self-administered questionnaire. ƒÓ2 test was used to test for significance of associationbetween categorical variables. Results: Of the 350 respondents, 262 (74.9%) were males, while 88 (25.1%) were females. The studyshows that 33 of the students smoke marijuana giving a prevalence of 9.4%. There were more smokers in the age group 15-19 years (54.6%). Other factors that influence marijuana smoking include familybackground, peer pressure and attendance of social functions. There was better academic performance (51.1%) among non smokers as compared to smokers (27.2%), and this was found to be statisticallysignificant (x2 = 11.73,df = 5,P < .05) There was also statistically significant association between age and marijuana smoking (x2 = 24,df = 2,P < .05) Conclusion: The prevalence of marijuana smoking is high. Age, family background, peer pressure and attendance of social function influence marijuana smoking. A comprehensive school health educationprogram should be instituted to curtail this menace

Background/Objective: Majority of the maternal deaths that occur especially in developing countries are avoidable or preventable. Studies have shown that the health, reproductive behaviour and socio economic status of women are among the important determinants of maternal mortality. This study was aimed at assessing the role of some health, socio-economic and demographic factors in determining the place of delivery among women in a semi-urban settlement in Zaria, north-western Nigeria. Method: The study design was a cross sectional descriptive study conducted in Sabuwar Unguwa, Magume district Zaria Local Government Area Kaduna State Nigeria in June, 2003. A total of 496 women who had delivered at least once were interviewed using a pre-tested interviewer administered questionnaire. Results: The study revealed both high rates of home deliveries and deliveries not supervised by skilled attendants of 70% and 78% respectively. Mother's educational level, husband's occupation and age at first pregnancy were the main determinants of place of delivery. Statistically significant associations between non- formal education and home delivery, (X2 = 6.7 df = 1 P