Feature Stories

Owolabi’s wife of 19 years died after a brain tumour was successfully removed. He tries not to blame the hospital where she contracted the infection that killed her. He understands sterile conditions are difficult to maintain in even the best of Nigerian facilities. And he believes his wife was treated in one of the country’s best hospitals.

She had been sick for months with vague symptoms wrongly diagnosed as a premenopausal state. She was hospitalized at one point and discharged. When her symptoms worsened, an emergency MRI revealed the tumour.

Glorious Erhuanga is rarely ill, she says. Which is a good thing because she does not care much for medical drugs. And because, by her own admission, she is an abuser of drugs. “I do abuse drugs in the sense that I don’t completely do the course. If you feel strong enough, you stop. But your illness is not gone completely, they [pathogens] hide in your body,” she explains.

Brazzaville – About two thirds of countries in the African region do not have reliable data on births, deaths, and causes of death, a recent World Health Organization (WHO) assessment found. The absence of this crucial information complicates effective health responses and policy-making in region.