Steve Dada
1 February 2008
Lagos — Lagos State ministry of health has announced commencement of the second round of the free state-wide screening exercise for hypertension and diabetes, scheduled to hold from February 4 to 8, 2008.
Announcing this at a press briefing in his office at Alausa Ikeja, Lagos yesterday, Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, said this becomes necessary, because Lagos, being the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria, has peculiar environmental and other risk factors that predispose residents to both diseases.
He said other diseases include cancers, (breast, cervical and prostate cancers), injuries and accidents (road, industrial and home), chronic lung diseases, sickle cell anemia among others.
Idris said in contemporary times, developing countries are undergoing major demographic and epidemiological transition, with significant increases in the burden of injuries and non-communicable diseases, adding that both diseases are more expensive to treat and harder to prevent.
He said the present administration will reorient demand for health services and increase pressure for improving disease-prevention and health promoting strategies in health care and appealed to residents to take the advantage of the free screening exercise to troop out to various screen centres to know their status.
In a similar development, the state ministry of health, in collaboration with Gbagada Rotary Club of Lagos, will screen people with amputated hands (below elbow), for artificial hands, scheduled to start at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), at 8.00a.m. daily between Monday February 4 and 5.
President of the Rotary Club, Mr Muyiwa Matuluku, said 50 artificial hands would be distributed to successful amputees at a later date, adding that the idea is to create poverty alleviation for such people.
Another screening has been scheduled for Abeokuta, Ogun State capital the following week.
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