NIGERIANS PREFER INJECTIONS TO DRUGS – USAID REPORT

Despite recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) that preference should be given to drugs than injection in case of ill health, Nigerians still prefer to be administered with injections, Prof. Adesegun Fatusi has said.
According to WHO, most infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B and C are as a result of poor and unsafe injection practices.
Professor Adesegun Fatusi, a consultant to a project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) also noted that there was still an unreported high number of injection use by Nigerians.
Speaking at the AIDSTAR end of project stakeholders meeting, Fatusi said: “there’s still a big gap in changing people’s behavior from taking injection to tablets.”
Earlier in her remarks, the Country Director of USAID, Mrs Abimbola Sowande noted that the injection burden in Nigeria is still high at 4.9 per cent, whereas the WHO expects it to be below one.
She said that in Nigeria, about 700 million injections are given annually and up to 490 million (70 per cent) of them are unnecessary and unsafe.
She called for legislation and funding to promote injection safety and health care waste management.
Sowande said, “More than half of the injections given in Nigeria are unnecessary because the drugs could have been taken orally.”
A director in the Federal Ministry of Environment, Mr femi Adebute, expressed regret that the project was winding up at a time the policy document on healthcare waste management has just been approved but the funds yet to be recovered.
Source: Daily Trust