Category: Health

Health

Making healthcare more accessible for Cleveland’s Congolese community

Story and Photos by Michael Indriolo | The Land

Snow fell outside last Saturday, but the mood was warmer inside the Amour du Christ Church on Clark Avenue where a few of Cleveland’s Congolese refugees braved the cold for a health clinic put on by IKON Health Foundation and The Refugee Response’s Community Advisory Board. 

This health clinic, like its predecessor at Cleveland’s Somali Community Center in February, was designed to make basic health services more accessible for local refugee populations who face language, cultural and logistical barriers to getting healthcare they need.

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Health

Johnson & Johnson Announces Landmark Agreement to Enable its COVID-19 Vaccine to be Manufactured and Made Available by an African Company for People Living in Africa

By Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson has announced the completion of a landmark agreement between Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and manufacturer Aspen SA Operations (Pty) Ltd, based in South Africa, to enable the first COVID-19 vaccine to be manufactured and made available by an African company for people living in Africa, with the goal of increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates across the continent.

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Health

There’s no single American hospital without a Nigerian: U.S. Professor

By NAN

There is no single hospital in the United States that does not have a Nigerian in its service, claims a U.S.-based historian and professor of African Studies, Apollos Nwauwa. 

“Apart from Indians, Nigerians are the most consequential immigrants in the U.S. based on the difference they make in many notable ways.

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Health

Professor Fiifi Ofori-Acquah Awarded $3m NIH Grant to Sequence DNA Of Children With Sickle Cell Disease In Ghana

By  Nathaniel Crabbe | YEN

Professor Fiifi Ofori-Acquah has been awarded a $3 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. The UK-trained Ghanaian researcher will use the funds in his research to sequence the whole genome DNA of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) in Ghana.

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Health

A Ghanaian Doctor, Trained In China, Wants To Help Minnesota Fight Covid-19

Amewoke Adamaley is one of hundreds of foreign-trained doctors in the state who face hurdles to practicing in America.

By JOEY PETERS | SAHAN JOURNAL

Amewoke Adamaley graduated from medical school seven years ago and has been in the health care sector ever since.  But he isn’t working as the doctor he’s trained to be. Instead, he’s a nursing assistant at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota’s east bank hospital. That’s because Adamaley, who earned his medical degree from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, has a tougher pathway to practicing medicine in the U.S. than doctors who were trained in America. 

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Health

COVID-19 Kills 3 Ghanaians in New York

By Adwoa Gyasiwaa Agyeman | Adom Radio

Three Ghanaians living in New York have succumbed to Covid 19. The Information Officer at the Consular office of the Ghanian Embassy in New York, Kofi Ameyaw, confirmed this during a radio interview in Ghana.

He said the deceased were two women and a man who was also a pastor in New York.

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Health

Student and teacher reunite decades after meeting in Nigeria

By Karen Garloch

Because of his name and accent, it’s not unusual for Dr. Yele Aluko’s patients to ask where he’s from.But in the early 1990s, when he got the question from this new patient – a retired Charlotte principal and Johnson C. Smith University professor – Aluko asked one of his own: Where do you think?

Spencer Durante guessed correctly that his new heart specialist was from Nigeria, in west Africa. This rarely happened. In fact, when Aluko first came to Charlotte in 1989, one area hospital administrator suggested he change his name from Yele – pronounced yeh-lay – to Yale, so it would be easier to say.

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Health

Millennial from Kenya is ‘sickle cell warrior’ – Florida Courier

“Marie Ojiambo’s outstanding success as a research scientist is truly inspiring as she did not allow the challenges of Sickle Cell Disease to prevent her from achieving her professional career goals.”

BY LAUREN POTEAT

It has been more than 100 years since sickle cell disease was first discovered in America. Today, the rare hereditary blood disorder continues to affect millions of people throughout the world.

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Health

US-Based Kenyan Nuclear Medicine Expert Advises Kenya Gov’t on How to Deal with Cancer Menace

By John Wanjohi

US-based Kenyan Nuclear Medicine expert John Gitau Wairimu has advised the Kenyan government on how to address the cancer menace in the country.

Gitau, who made history by being among the first four students in the United States to graduate with a Master’s degree in Nuclear Medicine in 2017, said the government’s main focus should be to diagnose cancer in the early stages.

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Health

Kenyan Senate probes state of Kenyan doctors in Cuba after one dies

By David Mwere

Kenya’s Senate has launched investigations into the welfare of 49 Kenyan doctors on an exchange programme in Cuba amid complaints that deplorable conditions led to the death of Dr Ali Juma.

Dr Juma, a postgraduate diploma student in family medicine, died by suicide after he was denied clearance to visit his family in Kenya.

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Health

U.S. hopes to send more experts to Congo as Ebola outbreak rages
By Lena H. Sun

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to send experts to Congo in the next few weeks to train international and local personnel in the fight against a raging Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly 600 people and is far from under control, the CDC director said Thursday in an interview.

Because of the worsening security situation, the CDC experts would not be based in the epicenter of the outbreak, in conflict-ridden parts of eastern Congo. Armed attacks against Ebola treatment centers in North Kivu province have increased in recent weeks. One attack took place hours before CDC Director Robert Redfield and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived last week as part of a WHO delegation to assess the situation on the ground.

Three CDC personnel are on temporary assignment about 200 miles south of the epicenter, in the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, Redfield said.

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Health

US, Congo seek partnerships in the fight against Sickle Cell disease.

By Judy Kuriansky

Jacqueline Mikolo and the Director of the Sickle Cell Center of Brazzaville Congo arrived in Washington D.C. to meet with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and with leaders at the Howard University Center for Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) to discuss the serious problem of sickle cell disease worldwide.

The Congolese Delegation, including the Minister of Higher Education, Bruno Itoua, also met with the Ambassador of the African Union to the United States, H.E. Dr Arikana Chihombori-Quao, to focus on funding.

The AU Ambassador, a Ghanaian national, is very familiar with health, as a family medicine doctor and previous Chair of the African Union-African Diaspora Health Initiative — where she was involved in mobilizing African Diaspora health professionals to address healthcare needs of the African continent.

The meetings build on many years of exchanges and advocacy about sickle cell disease between the United States and the Congo, explained Minister Mikolo.

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Health

US organisation,Battelle, shares expertise on fight against ebola in Africa

While Ebola might not be in the news at the level it was in 2014, it is still a significant health issue in Africa. In fact, the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history is actively ongoing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo now.

Battelle continues to support the fight against the disease by providing training in-country. Recently, two Battelle employees traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 16 days, representing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

During the trip, they provided training at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in Kinshasa, the nation’s capital. Battelle staff taught Congolese researchers how to conduct serologic assays to detect immune response to Ebola virus in vaccinated and exposed individuals, as well as disease survivors. Continue reading “US organisation,Battelle, shares expertise on fight against ebola in Africa” →

Health

US organisation to embark on humanitarian clitoral restorative surgical mission in Kenya

The U.S. based humanitarian organization, Clitoraid, is launching its 2nd clitoral restorative surgical mission in Nairobi, Kenya, March 4 – 14, 2019 to help the victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) regain their dignity and sexual pleasure, thanks to a technique developed by a French urologist.

“According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 25% of the Kenyan female population has endured the horrific tradition of genital cutting though the practice is now illegal in Kenya,” explained Nadine Gary, Clitoraid Director of Operations.

The WHO estimates that 125 million women worldwide have had their genitals forcibly mutilated as babies or when they were toddlers or possibly as teenagers. This practice grossly violates the UNICEF Convention on the Right of the Child.

Clitoraid volunteer head-surgeon, Dr. Marci Bowers of San Francisco, USA, will co-lead the clitoral restorative medical procedure in partnership with Kenyan Dr. Adan Abdullahi affiliated with the Kenyan NGO, Garana.

“They will be assisted by local Kenyan doctors as well as MDs from the US, Canada and Australia,” said Gary.

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