Health hub

       Written by Timothy Okooboh (PharmD)                                 World Health Day                                #HealthForAll                                                                                    "Health is a human right. No one should get sick and die just because they are poor or because they cannot access the health services they need."    Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus   WHO Director General.  The focus of this year's World Health Day is  Universal health coverage through the # HealthForAll campaign. Universal Health Coverage me...

Written by Blessing Ogbomo (PharmD)    " Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism " Carl Jung.  Drug abuse  clinically known as substance use disorder, is the indiscriminate use of any chemical substance including cigarettes, inhalants, alcohol and others. -At least 15.3 million persons have drug use disorders. -The harmful use of alcohol results in 3.3 million deaths each year. -On average every person in the world aged 15 years or older drinks 6.2 litres of pure alcohol per year. -It is estimated that 255 million people used illicit drugs such as cannabis, amphetamines, opioids and cocaine, in 2015 which translates into an annual prevalence of illicit drug use of 5.3 percent. Reference from : World drug report, 2017. (www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/en/). "Addiction isn't about substance - you aren't addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood th...

Breast cancer occurs when the cells of the breast divide rapidly than healthy cells do and continue  to accumulate forming a mass or lump.  It occurs in men but is mostly common in women.  Statistics on Breast Cancer  - Breast Cancer is the most frequent cancer among women, impacting over 1.5 million women each year  and also has the greatest number of cancer-related deaths among women.  - In year 2015, 570,000 women died from breast cancer.  Symptoms of Breast Cancer  - Breast Lump or thickening. - Changes in size, shape or appearance of the breast.  - A newly inverted nipple. - Redness or pitting of the skin over your breast.  -peeling, scaling, crushing or flaking of the pigmented area of skin surrounding the nipple or breast skin.  Risk factors for breast cancer  * Being a woman is the biggest risk of developing breast cancer. However, the risk of developing breast cancer rises as a w...

How Antimicrobial Resistance Spreads and the Phenomenon of Selective Pressure  Hello everyone, I continue my post on the   Antimicrobial Resistance series. As promised, I will be talking about how antimicrobial resistance spreads and the phenomenon of Selective Pressure. Just take a few minutes to look at the image above. It perfectly summarizes how antimicrobial resistance spreads between humans, animals and the environment. Antimicrobial resistance is said to have spread when resistant microbes spread from person to person. Antimicrobial Resistance spreads same way infections are spread such as through poor hygiene, unclean facilities, sexual contacts, air borne e.t.c. Hence there goes the saying, Resistance anywhere is Resistance everywhere.  Secondly,  I must establish the concept of Selective Pressure.  When antibiotics are consumed in the presence of a drug-resistant microbe, the antibiotic will destroy susceptible microbes and promote the...

Antimicrobial Resistance Today in my post on the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Series , as part of an effort to create awareness and stimulate collective action against the high resistance rate of microbes against  available antimicrobial drugs, I will be talking about how microbes gain resistance. Remember that Antimicrobial resistance is the resistance of a microbe to antimicrobial drugs that were originally able to treat infections caused by it. Basically, there are 2 types of resistance: intrinsic resistance and acquired resistance. In intrinsic resistance, the organism is pre-programmed to be resistant to certain antimicrobial drugs. For example gram negative bacteria have a cell wall with an outer membrane. This outer membrane is capable of blocking the entry of some antibiotics, thereby being resistant to these drugs. Acquired resistance on the other hand is divided into vertical transmission (mutation) and horizontal transmission ( gene transfer) Mutation refer...

Hello everyone. I'm PharmDr Timothy Okooboh. I have joined the fight against Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Therefore I am dedicated to creating awareness and fostering Collective Action towards comtaining Antimicrobial Resistance.  I will be sharing some posts on AMR with the aim of promoting Rational and Appropriate use of antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs.  So do keep in touch. # promoting rational use of antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs # # young pharmacists can make a difference #