By Chioma Obinna & Monsuru Olowoopejo

Lagos—THE Lagos State Government yesterday said it had recorded a drop from its Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, prevalence rate from 5.1 in 2013 to 4.1, even as it noted that about 47,393 persons living with the virus were receiving free antiretroviral drugs.

HIV

This came as the government said the state University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, carried out the first successful bone bridge surgery in West Africa, as well as successful cochlear implant surgeries on three deaf patients without the support of foreign doctors.

According to the state government, the feat was achieved in December 2015.

Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris at the Health Ministry’s briefing to commemorate Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s first year in office, said LASUTH also had its first successful kidney transplant carried out by the hospital’s team of urologists and nephrologists in November 2015 and discharged the patient in good condition on December 1, 2015, while another transplant is being planned.

According to him, in the period under review, LASUTH in collaboration with Vision Care and South Korean Community in Nigeria provided free cataract surgeries for 120 Lagosians and treated 250 outpatients between November 9 and 13, 2015 with 100 percent success rate, while under the blindness prevention programme, a total of 7, 250 patients with varying ophthalmic conditions were screened at 29 different community screening venues out of which 4, 867 representing 67.1 percent were given free glasses.

…4,091 civil servants contact malaria, 1, 277 hypertension

On the outcome of the screening of civil servants in the state, he said “a total of patients seen was 11,418. The Three most prevalent disease entities are Malaria -4,091, Hypertension – 1,277, Upper respiratory tract infection – 1,154.”

Idris attributed the increase to fear and poor life style.

Alongside Special Adviser to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Health, Dr. Olufemi Onanuga, the Commissioner, while giving account of the ministry’s activities under the Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, LASACA, said in the last one year, the state screened and counselled 645,301 persons for HIV/AIDS.

He explained that the prevalence rate three years ago was 5.1 percent rate, saying “We have achieved one percent reduction. We are getting downward trend and we need to intensify our advocacy and others to ensure that the percentage continue to reduce.”

Though Idris did not state the current number of affected residents in the state but argued that the prevalence percentage represented the number of cases positive at that time.

According to him: “The next one year would activities specifically targeting the issue of quality in all its dimensions, strengthening the delivery system and scaling up health promotion and disease prevention activities.”