OBJECTIVE To observe blood pressure (BP) pattern and its correlates in primary school children of northern Nigeria. DESIGN Sitting BP and pulse were measured in quadruplicate, then repeated after four weeks in 1,721 healthy children aged five to 16 years. Body weight and height were also measured in their school environment. SETTING Primary schools located in three communities in Zaria Loca...

Western Europe is seeing a growing number of cases of H5N1 flu in wild birds that have migrated from the east, but new outbreaks in poultry in Africa threaten the hordes of birds heading north for the summer breeding season. Worries about the disease are likely to grow. The Tower of London's famous ravens are now, for the first time in 400 years, locked up inside the building. The move marks gr...

Immunization is aimed at the prevention of infectious diseases. In Nigeria, the National Programme on Immunization (NPI) suffers recurrent setbacks due to many factors including ethnicity and religious beliefs. Nigeria is made up of 36 states with its federal capital in Abuja. The country is divided into six geo-political zones; north central, north west, north east, south east, south west and ...

Background The Partnership for Transforming Health Systems Phase 2 (PATHS2) project introduced and supports community based interventions such as safe motherhood initiative demand side (SMID) and an emergency transport scheme within northern Nigeria. This study evaluates the effect of PATHS2’s community based interventions in addressing transportation as a barrier to accessing skilled birth del...

Antioxidant properties of three different medicinal plant extracts from northern Nigeria were evaluated using the traditional qualitative 2,2, diphenyl-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method and a new 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) microdilution method described here. The results were in agreement. It is a simple, rapid and inexpensive method compared with many other ...

Cyperus articulatus is an insect repellant plant commonly found in Northern Nigeria and used traditionally in pest control. The light petroleum and methanol extracts of the plant's rhizome were evaluated against Tribolium casteneum Hbst (the red flour beetle) using standard techniques. The methanol extract showed more antifeedant property than the light petroleum extract, while both the extract...

BACKGROUND Poor quality of health services and socio-cultural dynamics may severely limit utilization of health services. Facility health committees were established in several states in northern Nigeria to reduce these barriers. The committees were charged with mobilizing communities, improving quality of health services, and promoting utilization of maternal and child health services. This st...

Introduction: In 2009, the Partnership for Reviving Routine Immunisation in Northern Nigeria (PRRINN) Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Programme, in collaboration with the Zamfara State Ministry of Health, launched the Nahuche Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) in a rural north Nigerian setting. Located in Bungudu Local Government Area in Zamfara State, the Nahuche HDSS ...

With national and global health policymakers facing numerous complex decisions related to achieving and maintaining polio eradication, we expanded our previously developed dynamic poliovirus transmission model using information from an expert literature review process and including additional immunity states and the evolution of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). The model explicitly considers sero...

BACKGROUND Malaria burden is high in Nigeria, yet information on the major mosquito vectors is lacking especially in the Sudan savannah region of the country. In order to facilitate the design of future insecticide-based control interventions in the region, this study has established the resistance profile of An. gambiae s.l. populations in two northern Nigeria locations and assessed the contri...