There is no strong evidence that anything works to shorten a cold symptom, says Professor Barclay, but “treating symptoms with over-the-counter remedies like decongestants or pain-killers will make you feel better. Stop it in its track: An itchy nose and sore throat are the early signs that a cold is coming on—try Vicks First Defence. There is some science behind this product. It lowers the pH of the nose, making it more acidic, and viruses don’t like a low pH environment.

THE rainy season is fast upon us. A few of us might skip through the season; but most of us will succumb, enduring between two and five bouts of sniffing and sneezing each year—each lasting an average of nine days. Experts believe we spend around five years of our lives sneezing, coughing and feeling generally rather under the weather. According to reports from experts on colds and nasal allergies, there are tips to prevent the viruses and how to minimise the symptoms with the latest treatments available to help you get back to normal life as fast as possible.

Anywhere else, a junior minister would be wary of a spat with a senior minister in public. But this is Nigeria, where decorum is scarce even in very high places. Defiance often attracts applause that should belong to reason. Ordinarily, President Buhari should be left to sort out his kitchen. But conducts that border on rascality have a way of reinforcing the tendency towards general lawlessness in the polity.

THE Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Ondo state weekend alleged that the opposition All Progressives Congress APC was involved in a parallel voters registration exercise in the state. It’s Director of Publicity Ayo Fadaka in a statement in Akure called on “INEC and the Security agencies to stop the APC from taking actions geared towards compromising our elections through the implementation of fraudulent projects like this.

THE Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai yesterday summoned to Abuja for an emergency meeting, the General Officers Command of all the divisions of the army following allegations by militant groups in the Niger Delta that some army officers have solicited their support to oust the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari through a coup détat. Present at the meeting were the General Officers Commanding (GOCs) 1, 2, 3, 81, 82, 7 and 8 divisions of the Army, as well as Principal Staff Officers based in Abuja and other parts of the country.

One news item caught my attention in the Saturday Vanguard of April 16, 2016; a photo of a drunken young lady peeing in public in Newcastle, England. She was sitting on a bridge railing with her trousers pulled down to her knees, baring everything for the whole of humanity.

My column last week was on Mexico, a country I visited last month. I tried in the article, to point out how Mexico which might become a major economic power in less than a decade, had benefited from its close proximity to the US through tourism. In fact, Mexico receives one of the world’s largest numbers of tourists in a year according to statistics. Yet, its tourism strengths —weather, historic sights and the seas —are not greater than ours. If anything, Nigeria has a more diverse weather.

Sometimes, when we identify patients that we feel cannot get to where we are referring them to, we tried to scout all the wards to find a bed to move a patient who is fairly stable so that we can take the new patient in. It is unfortunate that this hospital is probably the busiest hospital and the state owes a lot of obligation to the people in terms of free health. A lot of those who come here cannot even afford to go elsewhere. So as harsh as I have been that nobody should be on the floor, sometimes we buy time to look for a place to put a patient. Otherwise if a patient comes and you send him or her back without resuscitation, the patient may die before he or she gets to the next centre.

Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, is a facility that records over 200 emergencies in two of its Accident & Emergency, A&E, units on a daily basis. Situated few kilometres away from the domestic terminal and Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, LASUTH, is open to patients from all parts of the country and neighbouring African countries and is prone to unavoidable emergency cases at all times.

Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South DELTA State Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, spoke plainly in an interview with this reporter, some months ago, that former Minister of Information, Prof Sam Oyovbaire, is his political godfather. Getting the academic and political strategist, who the governor respects his mental power to share his perspective on Okowa took some […]

Nigeria is indeed a powerful country. A country where things happen like it’s a movie.

The Chairman, opposition The Commonwealth Liberation Party (TCLP), in Britain, Professor Alexia Thomas, has explained how she predicted the exit of British Prime Minister, David Cameron, long before the referendum for Britain to leave the European Union, on Thursday, June 23, 2016.

As Chinenye Kalu approached the notice board last November, she felt beads of cold sweat on her forehead. She was scared and tensed up, with hands trembling. She was one of the medical graduates who sat for the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) internship examination six months before, and knowing that very limited space was available for the tens of applicants who sat for the examination, she realised it would be a major challenge. (Chinenye Kalu is not her real name as she does not want her name mentioned.).

There are many of them stranded out there. And, it seems clear that it is difficult for them to be able to keep themselves afloat or to return to the classroom after missing the first opportunity. They are found everywhere across the length and breadth of Nigeria. They are young. Some are strikingly beautiful and others are awful. But they have one thing in common: frustration, arising from unwanted pregnancy that has put a wedge between them and their parents on one hand and their future on the other hand.

As part of measures to prevent building collapse, Lagos State Government through its agency, Lagos State Planning and Environmental Monitoring Authority, LASPEMA, has issued contravention notices to owners and occupants of 13 identified distressed buildings in Ajegunle and some other parts of Ifelodun Local Council Development Area of the state to vacate the buildings.