Category: Health

  • Nigeria reports 627 measles cases, Katsina, Jigawa states worst hit

    Nigeria reports 627 measles cases, Katsina, Jigawa states worst hit

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has reported 627 suspected measles cases across 30 states and 213 Local Government Areas (LGAs) as of January 31, 2025.

    Dr Jide Idris, Director-General of NCDC, on Wednesday in Abuja, said that this marked a significant drop from the 2,157 cases recorded in January 2024.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined measles as a highly contagious viral infection that spreads through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

    WHO said that the virus can linger in the air or on surfaces for hours, making transmission easy.

    The UN health organisation said that the symptoms usually start with fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes, followed by a rash that spreads across the body.

    It noted that severe complications include pneumonia, blindness, brain inflammation (encephalitis), and, in some cases, death—particularly among unvaccinated children and those with weakened immune systems.

    According to Idris, the measles situation report for Epidemiological Week 7 (February 10–16, 2025), 112 of the suspected cases, 17.86 per cent, have been laboratory-confirmed, with no deaths recorded.

    He said that this was a notable improvement from the same period in 2024, which saw 23 confirmed measles deaths, resulting in a case fatality rate of 0.96 per cent.

    Idris states that Katsina (102), Jigawa (84), Akwa Ibom (56), Kebbi (52), and Enugu (32) recorded the highest number of suspected cases, accounting for over half of the national total.

    He also revealed that 81.3 per cent of confirmed cases involved individuals who had not received any dose of the measles vaccine, underscoring a major gap in immunisation coverage.

    He said that further analysis showed that nearly half, 46.4 per cent, of confirmed cases occurred in children aged nine to 59 months.

    “As of January 31, 38 LGAs across 18 states were experiencing active measles outbreaks, with Katsina leading (7 LGAs).

    “Other states with multiple outbreak-affected LGAs include Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, and Sokoto, each reporting three affected LGAs,” he said.

    He said that vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent measles.

    “The measles-containing vaccine, typically administered as part of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine, is given in two doses at nine months and 15 months per the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) guidelines,” he said.

    He said that strengthened routine immunisation, particularly in high-risk areas, early detection and rapid response to suspected cases and public health awareness campaigns were critical to encourage vaccination.

    Idris stressed the importance of vaccination in preventing measles outbreaks and urged parents and guardians to ensure their children receive the recommended doses.

    He said that the agency was also working to improve surveillance and outbreak response to curb further spread.

    As the agency intensifies its immunisation efforts, Idris stressed the need for increased community engagement, better vaccine accessibility, and stronger collaboration between health agencies and local communities to eliminate measles.

    He urged Nigerians to stay informed through official health updates and participate in vaccination campaigns. (NAN)

  • Sanwo-Olu calls for collective action against malaria

    Sanwo-Olu calls for collective action against malaria

    Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, alongside the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Salako, on Tuesday, launched the Pathway to Malaria Pre-Elimination and Digitisation Programme in Lagos.

    The initiative aims to revolutionize malaria control in the state through digital innovation and strategic public-private partnerships. Addressing a distinguished audience of global partners, policymakers, health practitioners, and pharmaceutical stakeholders, Governor Sanwo-Olu emphasized the socioeconomic burden of malaria, noting that it hampers productivity, drains household incomes, and disrupts education, particularly among low-income earners.

    Sanwo-Olu underscored the economic necessity of malaria eradication, stating that eliminating the disease could significantly boost Lagos’ GDP. He urged residents to adopt a “test-before-treatment” approach, warning against self-diagnosis and the assumption that all fevers are malaria-related. He also praised the integration of digital tools in the program, which will enable real-time tracking of malaria cases, thereby enhancing intervention efficiency.

    The Governor called on government agencies, healthcare providers, community leaders, and citizens to collaborate in the fight against malaria. While acknowledging that success may not come overnight, he expressed confidence that sustained efforts would lead to a malaria-free Lagos.

    He commended the Lagos State Ministry of Health and its partners for their transparent data presentation and ongoing efforts to meet the 2025 malaria elimination targets. Stressing the importance of community engagement, Sanwo-Olu encouraged residents to become advocates for the program by spreading awareness on preventive measures and the need for proper testing before treatment.

    “This fight belongs to all of us. We must embrace preventive measures like eliminating mosquito breeding sites and adopt a test-before-treatment approach to ensure accurate diagnoses. Together, we can rewrite Lagos’ malaria story, turning it into one of triumph and progress.”

    The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Salako, applauded Lagos State’s innovative approach to malaria control. Recalling the state’s early leadership in malaria case management under former Governor and current President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, he praised the new program for aligning with the Federal Ministry of Health’s ‘Rethinking Malaria’ initiative, launched in April 2024.

    Dr. Salako highlighted Lagos’ low malaria prevalence rate (2%)—the lowest in Nigeria—and expressed confidence that with sustained efforts, the state could achieve pre-elimination status, serving as a model for the nation.

    He emphasized the crucial role of the private sector in malaria control, noting that 50-60% of Nigerians first seek treatment in private health facilities. He stressed the need for public-private partnerships to enhance diagnostic accuracy and improve malaria-negative fever protocols.

    Salako reassured stakeholders that recent global health funding changes would not hinder Nigeria’s malaria elimination efforts, affirming the federal government’s commitment to securing adequate, cost-effective funding for public health initiatives.

    In his presentation titled “Winning the Fight Against Malaria in Lagos State,” Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, described malaria as a major public health challenge contributing to mortality, economic burdens, and reduced human capital development.

    He noted that Nigeria bears 27% of global malaria cases, yet Lagos State has successfully reduced its prevalence to 2.6%, placing it in the low-transmission category. This progress, he said, is due to sustained interventions, private-sector partnerships, and digital health innovations.

    Abayomi emphasized the need for continuous efforts in:

    Early diagnosis and effective treatment

    Vector control measures like indoor residual spraying and larviciding

    Community education and engagement

    Digital health tracking for real-time data collection

    He also stressed the shift from presumptive treatment to a “test, treat, and track” approach, which would improve diagnostic accuracy, ensure appropriate use of anti-malarial drugs, and prevent drug resistance.

    Dr. Kazadi Walter Mulombo, WHO Country Representative for Nigeria, hailed Lagos as a model for urban malaria control. He emphasized the importance of evidence-based interventions, private-sector collaboration, and government commitment to achieving malaria elimination.

    Dr. Ndiame Diop, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, noted the economic impact of malaria, linking it to 30% of under-five deaths and 60% of outpatient visits in Nigeria. He urged increased funding, public-private partnerships, and community-led interventions.

    Dr. Omokhudu Idogho, Managing Director, the Society for Family Health (SFH), emphasized the role of digital technology in malaria tracking and surveillance, highlighting its importance in accelerating elimination efforts.

    With collective action, innovative solutions, and sustained commitment, Lagos is on track to becoming malaria-free. The newly launched digital malaria control initiative sets the stage for a transformational shift in disease management, ensuring a healthier and more prosperous future for all Lagosians.

  • First cases reported in deadly 1918 flu pandemic

    First cases reported in deadly 1918 flu pandemic

    Just before breakfast on the morning of March 4, Private Albert Gitchell of the U.S. Army reports to the hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of the cold-like symptoms of sore throat, fever, and headache. Soon after, over 100 of his fellow soldiers reported similar symptoms, marking what are believed to be the first cases in the historic influenza pandemic of 1918, later known as Spanish flu. The flu would eventually kill 675,000 Americans and an estimated 20 million to 50 million people around the world, proving to be a far deadlier force than even the First World War.

    The initial outbreak of the disease, reported at Fort Riley in March, was followed by similar outbreaks in army camps and prisons in various regions of the country. The disease soon traveled to Europe with the American soldiers heading to aid the Allies on the battlefields of France. (In March 1918 alone, 84,000 American soldiers headed across the Atlantic; another 118,000 followed them the next month.) Once it arrived on a second continent, the flu showed no signs of abating: 31,000 cases were reported in June in Great Britain. The disease was eventually dubbed the Spanish flu because people erroneously believed Spain was the epicenter of the pandemic.

    The flu showed no mercy for combatants on either side of the trenches. Over the summer, the first wave of the epidemic hit German forces on the Western Front, where they were waging a final, no-holds-barred offensive that would determine the outcome of the war. It had a significant effect on the already weakening morale of the troops—as German army commander Crown Prince Rupprecht wrote on August 3: poor provisions, heavy losses, and the deepening influenza have deeply depressed the spirits of men in the III Infantry Division.

  • When Cigarette Warning Labels Led to a Crackdown on Smoking

    When Cigarette Warning Labels Led to a Crackdown on Smoking

    The popularity of cigarette smoking in the United States first took off in the aftermath of World War I, when soldiers brought the habit home with them. By 1944, during World War II, 41 percent of all American adults were smokers, according to Gallup.

    The medical community had long speculated that cigarettes caused lung cancer, and in 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry publicly confirmed those concerns were valid. He issued a landmark 387-page report that led to the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, which required health risk warning labels on cigarette packs sold in the U.S.

    While the labels may not have led to an immediate decline in smoking, historians say they were an important first tobacco regulation step that helped spur other efforts to reduce smoking—including advertising restrictions and smoking bans in public places and workplaces.

    Flashback: Robots Smoked Cigarettes at the 1939 World’s Fair

     

    Cigarettes Become Cool After World War I

    Chewing tobacco and pipes were more popular than cigarettes at the turn of the 20th century, with many people associating cigarettes to “boyhood, adolescence, rebellion,” says Allan Brandt, professor of the history of medicine and public health at Harvard University and author of The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America.

    “Cigarettes were really thought about as being a very sort of denigrated form of use of tobacco,” Brandt says. “Gentlemen smoked pipes and cigars. Women shouldn’t smoke at all.”

    World War I soldiers picked up the habit in droves as a distraction from the harsh realities of war. That helped change perceptions of smoking cigarettes “from a dirty boys’ habit to being a source of gratification,” Brandt says.

    Smoking was glamorized in movies featuring characters who smoked, and movie stars became celebrity endorsers of cigarette brands while newspapers and magazines were filled with cigarette ads.

    Smoking Linked to Rising Cancer Rates

    As lung cancer cases worldwide rose rapidly by the mid-20th century, a landmark 1956 study in England surveyed the smoking habits and health outcomes of 34,400 British doctors—and linked smoking to lung cancer. A Reader’s Digest article “Cancer by the Carton” shared similar results from recent medical studies.

    The powerful U.S. tobacco industry worked fervently to contest  the research. In 1958, the Tobacco Institute was established to cast doubt on health research linking cigarette smoking to disease, communicate the industry’s standpoint on health and economic issues to the public and lobby against cigarette regulations.

    The path to cigarette pack warning labels started after Terry established his committee to explore smoking’s health impacts. After analyzing more than 7,000 medical articles, the panel—made up of half smokers and half non-smokers—released its “Smoking and Health” report on January 11, 1964. It linked smoking to lung cancer, throat cancer and chronic bronchitis.

    The Politics of Cigarette Warning Labels

    The report urged government action to reduce smoking and generated intense public interest.

    “There is a question of, what is that going to look like? What is going to be the entity to regulate this problem that’s been clearly defined by experts?” says Sarah Milov, associate professor of history at the University of Virginia and author of The Cigarette: A Political History.

    The tobacco industry, Milov says, wanted regulation to come from Congress, believing lawmakers would protect the sector’s interests.

    But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—the independent U.S. government agency charged with protecting consumers—entered the fray. In January 1964, the FTC proposed warning labels saying smoking is dangerous to health, may cause cancer and that the Surgeon General found it “contributes substantially to mortality from certain diseases and to the overall death rate.”

    The mortality rates and death references worried the cigarette companies, which responded with more lobbying and a public relations campaign highlighting the economic importance of the tobacco industry. By June 1964, the FTC changed course, announcing it would instead require warnings where cigarette manufacturers could come up with their own language, so long as they clearly stated that smoking can lead to death from cancer and other illnesses.

    Congress ended up intervening on the issue before the FTC could proceed with its final proposal. The congressional debate over labeling “was the first time people began to understand the political significance of political lobbying [and] special interest groups,” Brandt says.

    Landmark U.S. Tobacco Law Passed

    Congress passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act in July 1965, requiring that all cigarette packs include the statement “Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.” Warnings for cigarette ads were not included in the legislation, though it charged the FTC with monitoring the ads for deceptive claims.

    “If we really look back at it, those regulations were very weak,” Brandt says. “But at the same time, it showed that our political processes could really support population health by regulating very big and powerful industries.”

    In a nod to the tobacco lobby, the law prevented federal, state and local government bodies from enacting any other cigarette labeling or advertising requirements for four years.

    “Legislative preemption of agency action became the overall strategy of the tobacco industry because Congress was more friendly to the industry than the agencies,” Milov says.

    While the tobacco industry succeeded in weakening the warning language, the sector saw the labels as beneficial, to some degree, because smokers were now informed their health could suffer because of cigarette use, potentially reducing the risk of lawsuits from smokers who developed health problems.

    How Tobacco Regulation Has Evolved

    U.S. cigarette smoking rates didn’t drop below 40 percent until the late 1970s.

    But the legislation was the first of many anti-smoking efforts, and historians say it played a pivotal role in the anti-smoking crusade.

    “What this led to was a very aggressive grassroots tobacco-controlled movement that, over time, has really had a big impact,” Brandt says. “We went from a society that celebrated smoking to it being an often discredited behavior.”

    By 1970, Congress passed legislation to strengthen warning labels and ban cigarette ads on radio and television.

    As the health hazards of secondhand smoke became clear in the mid-1980s, public health and environmental activists focused on curbing smoking and cigarettes at the state and local levels. This drive led to smoking bans in airports, bus stations, public parks and beaches, restaurants, bars and workplaces.

    In 2009, the Food and Drug Administration gained the authority to regulate tobacco product manufacturing and marketing. That year, Congress mandated the FDA to require graphic warnings on cigarette packs featuring disturbing images of people with tobacco-related health problems, spurring an ongoing legal battle between the FDA and the tobacco industry.

    According to Gallup, by 2024, only 11 percent of the population said they smoked cigarettes in the past week.

  • Pope slept all night, resting after two breathing attacks – Vatican

    Pope slept all night, resting after two breathing attacks – Vatican

    Pope Francis, hospitalised with pneumonia in both lungs, slept all night and was resting on Tuesday after suffering two bouts of acute respiratory failure the day before, the Vatican said.

    The 88-year-old was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14 with bronchitis, which developed into pneumonia in both lungs, sparking alarm.

    On Monday, the pope “experienced two episodes of acute respiratory failure, caused by a significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm”, the Vatican had said in its evening update.

    Acute respiratory failure, which can be life-threatening, occurs when the lungs cannot pass enough oxygen into the blood or when carbon dioxide builds up in the body.

    The Holy See added that Francis’s prognosis remained “reserved”, an indication that doctors cannot predict the likely outcome of his condition.

    On Tuesday morning, it issued a typically brief update saying: “The pope slept all night long and continues to rest.”

    It was the third crisis the Argentine pontiff has suffered since his admission to the Gemelli, where he is being treated in a special papal suite on the 10th floor.

    On February 22, he suffered a “prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis”, followed on February 28 by “an isolated crisis of bronchospasm” — a tightening of the muscles that line the airways in the lungs.

    – Global prayers –

    Medical experts warned Francis’s continued hospitalisation — the longest of his 12-year papacy — and the repeated crises were alarming.

    “At 88 years old, being in the hospital for two weeks and having repeated episodes of respiratory discomfort is a very bad sign,” Bruno Crestani, head of the pulmonology department at Bichat hospital in Paris, told AFP.

    Herve Pegliasco, head of pulmonology at the European Hospital in Marseille, added that with double pneumonia, “there is the issue of exhaustion, because he is forced to make much more effort to breathe”.

    The Vatican said on Monday the pope was alert and cooperative during his crisis, which required two separate bronchoscopies, where doctors look into the air passages using a small camera at the base of a flexible tube.

    The head of the world’s almost 1.4 billion Catholics has been working during his time in the Gemelli, talking on the telephone and receiving some officials, according to Vatican sources.

    But Francis has not been seen in public for almost three weeks and the last photos taken of him were from his private audiences on the morning of his admission to hospital.

    The Argentine missed his traditional Angelus prayer for a third straight Sunday and the Vatican issued a written text instead.

    In it, the pope thanked the well-wishers around the world who have been holding prayers for his recovery, including outside the hospital and every evening at Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican.

    “I feel all your affection and closeness and, at this particular time, I feel as if I am ‘carried’ and supported by all God’s people. Thank you all.”

    Francis has suffered numerous health issues in recent years, from colon surgery in 2021 to a hernia operation in 2023, and uses a wheelchair due to hip and knee pain.

    He has always left open the option of resigning if his health declined, following the example set by his predecessor, German theologian Benedict XVI, but had before his hospitalisation repeatedly dismissed the idea.

  • NAFDAC alerts Nigerians on circulation of substandard insulin syringes

    NAFDAC alerts Nigerians on circulation of substandard insulin syringes

    The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has raised the alarm over the illegal circulation and marketing of a substandard and falsified medical product, the Knowit Insulin Syringe 40 IU 29G x 1/2, in Nigeria.

    The agency issued the warning in a statement on its website on Monday.

    According to the statement, the alarm follows concerns from the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria regarding the continued use of outdated 40 IU/ML insulin syringes, despite the availability of the standardized 100 IU/ML syringes.

    NAFDAC explained that the 40 IU/ML insulin syringe was previously approved alongside the 100 IU/ML variant for administering Lente animal insulins, which were available in both strengths. However, with the phasing out of animal insulins and the transition to human insulins—standardized at 100 IU/ML—the 40 IU/ML syringe has become obsolete.

    The agency stressed that this syringe is no longer registered, as its use with modern insulin formulations poses a significant risk of dosing errors, potentially leading to life-threatening complications for diabetic patients.

    The statement reads: “The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is alerting the public about the illegal circulation and marketing of the substandard and falsified Knowit Insulin Syringe 40 IU 29G x 1/2 in Nigeria.

    “The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria has raised concerns about the ongoing use of 40 IU/ML insulin syringes despite the availability of 100 IU/ML insulin syringes.

    “The 40 IU/ML insulin syringe was previously approved alongside the 100 IU/ML variant for administering Lente animal insulins, as they were available in both strengths.

    “However, with the discontinuation of animal insulins and the advent of human insulins — now standardized at 100 IU/ML—the 40 IU/ML insulin syringe is no longer applicable and is no longer registered by NAFDAC. Its use could result in dosing errors, with serious adverse consequences for diabetic patients.

    “Using a 40 IU/ML syringe to administer 100 IU/ML insulin exposes patients to a high risk of dosing errors, as the calculations required to adjust for this mismatch cannot be reliably performed by most patients.”
    NAFDAC stressed that insulin dosing errors are life-threatening and could cause severe complications for diabetic patients.

    The agency has directed all its zonal directors and state coordinators to conduct surveillance and remove substandard and falsified products from circulation.

    It also urged importers, distributors, retailers, healthcare professionals, and caregivers to exercise caution and vigilance within the supply chain to prevent the importation, distribution, sale, and use of substandard and falsified products.

  • Ogun confirms 415 temporary health workers as permanent staff

    Ogun confirms 415 temporary health workers as permanent staff

    Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has approved the regularisation and absorption of 415 temporary health workers across the state-owned hospitals into the state pensionable workforce.

    Speaking during the regularisation exercise held on Friday at the Staff Development Centre, Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta, the state capital, the Permanent Secretary of the Hospitals Management Board, Olayinka Elemide, thanked Abiodun for the kind gesture saying, “This kind of regularisation exercise is unprecedented in the history of the state.”

    Elemide added, “On behalf of the Hospitals Management Board and the 415 locum hospital workers, I want to thank the governor for his large heart and kind consideration as a loving father of the workers in the state.”

    She disclosed that the health workers had been on the job for some time now, adding that the formal regularisation would help to secure their jobs, boost their morale and help improve service delivery which would translate to effective health care delivery to the people of the state.

    Elemide said, “I hereby charge you as the beneficiaries of the magnanimity of our dear governor to reciprocate this kind consideration by improving on your dedication and service delivery in the present administration’s commitment and quest for qualitative healthcare delivery.”

    Responding on behalf of other beneficiaries, Mr Sanni Akanni and Mr Geminiyi Jacob of General Hospitals in Imeko/Afon and Atan respectively lauded Abiodun for the gesture while promising to be more dedicated, productive, diligent and committed in the discharge of their duties.

    The erstwhile ad hoc workers in their numbers took turns to get their documents and certificates verified by officers from the Bureau of Establishment and Training led by the Permanent Secretary of the Bureau, Mrs. Lydia Fajohunbo in compliance with the rules and regulations of the service.

  • UNAIDS raises concerns as US stops HIV funding

    UNAIDS raises concerns as US stops HIV funding

    The United States Government has terminated its agreement with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS,
    an innovative joint venture of the United Nations family which leads the global effort to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.

    UNAIDS shared this update on its website on Friday.

    On January 20, 2025, the President of the United States of America issued an Executive Order called “Reevaluating and Realigning U.S. Foreign AID” which ordered a 90-day freeze of all foreign aid pending a review of assistance efforts to ensure alignment with current U.S. foreign policy.

    UNAIDS stated that it complied with the Executive Order and suspended contracts and activities under those awards as a recipient of U.S. foreign assistance.

    It, however, said on February 27, 2025, it received a letter from the U.S. Government/USAID “stating they are terminating their agreement with UNAIDS with immediate effect.”

    UNAIDS added, “This is a serious development, which impacts the entire HIV response including in the continuity of life-saving HIV services for people living with and affected by HIV, civil society, and our partners.

    “In the letter, the U.S. Government/USAID stated, “detailed instructions will follow.” UNAIDS has reached out formally to the U.S. Government for more information.”

    As of February 17, 2025, UNAIDS received reports from 52 countries experiencing disruptions in their HIV responses due to the U.S. foreign aid pause.

    The report revealed alarming impacts, including disruptions in HIV testing, treatment, and prevention services, with community organizations, and healthcare workers affected.

    The report indicated that Nigeria is one of the 20 countries most reliant on U.S. funding for HIV medicines, as Nigeria gets 47 percent of resources from direct U.S. funding and 94 per of resources from donor funding.

    In early February, the Federal Executive Council approved a total of $1.07bn in financing for healthcare sector reforms under the Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity program, as well as an N4.8bn allocation for HIV treatment.

    Nigeria has an HIV prevalence rate of 1.4 percent among the general population aged 15–64 years, with an estimated two million people living with HIV. About 1.6 million of them are currently on treatment, according to the National Agency for the Control of AIDS.

    The World Health Organisation had in January expressed deep concern about the implications of the immediate funding pause for HIV programs in low- and middle-income countries, as these programs provide access to life-saving HIV therapy to more than 30 million people worldwide.

    Globally, 39.9 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2023.

    The global health body noted that a funding halt for HIV programs can put people living with HIV at an immediately increased risk of illness and death and undermine efforts to prevent transmission in communities and countries.

    It said, such measures, if prolonged, could lead to rises in new infections and deaths, reversing decades of progress and potentially taking the world back to the 1980s and 1990s when millions died of HIV every year globally, including many in the United States of America.

  • Pope suffers breathing ‘crisis’ – Vatican

    Pope suffers breathing ‘crisis’ – Vatican

    Pope Francis, in hospital with pneumonia, suffered a breathing “crisis” on Friday which caused him to vomit, but he was given air and responded well, the Vatican said.

    The 88-year-old, who has spent the past two weeks at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, “presented an isolated crisis of bronchospasm which… led to an episode of vomiting with inhalation and a sudden worsening of the respiratory picture”, it said in a statement.

    “The Holy Father promptly underwent broncho-aspiration and began non-invasive mechanical ventilation, with a good response on gas exchange,” it said.

    Francis “remained alert and oriented at all times, cooperating with the therapeutic maneuvers,” it added.

    The pope was hospitalized on February 14 for breathing difficulties but his condition deteriorated into pneumonia in both lungs, sparking widespread alarm.

    He suffered a breathing attack at the weekend, but since then appeared to have been getting slightly better, with the Vatican releasing more optimistic medical updates.

    A Vatican source went so far Friday as to say Francis’s condition was not currently critical following incremental improvements in his condition.

    But the Vatican has not yet modified the pope’s prognosis of “reserved”, — which means doctors will not predict changes in his health.

    Medical experts have warned that Francis’s age and the chronic respiratory disease from which he suffers mean a sustained recovery could take time.

    And Friday’s bulletin from the Vatican stressed once again that his “prognosis remains reserved”.

    This hospital stay is Francis’s longest since he was elected pope in 2013.

    TodayPriceNG: News

  • Hospitalised pope no longer in critical condition – Vatican

    Hospitalised pope no longer in critical condition – Vatican

    Pope Francis’s condition is not currently critical, a Vatican source said Friday, after a series of clinical improvements for the 88-year-old pontiff suffering from pneumonia in both lungs.

    The Argentine pope has spent the past two weeks at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, with the Vatican reporting incremental improvements in his condition in recent days.

    A Vatican source said Friday that the “criticality has passed, for the moment”, while cautioning that Francis’s overall condition “remains complex” and his prognosis still “reserved”.

    Earlier Friday, the Vatican said the pope had spent another peaceful night in hospital.

    After being hospitalized on February 14 for breathing difficulties, the pontiff’s condition sparked widespread alarm as it deteriorated into pneumonia in both lungs.

    But there has been no recurrence of the breathing attack he suffered at the weekend and since then the Vatican has released more optimistic medical updates.

    On Monday, it said Francis showed a “slight improvement”, and on Tuesday noted that his condition was “critical but stable”, the last time it used the term “critical” for his condition.

    A “further, slight improvement” was reported Wednesday and on Thursday the Vatican said the “clinical conditions of the Holy Father are confirmed to be improving today also”.

    – Still reserved –

    The Vatican has not yet modified the pope’s prognosis of “reserved”, however — which means doctors will not predict changes in his health.

    Medical experts have warned that Francis’s age and the chronic respiratory disease from which he suffers mean a sustained recovery could take time.

    “Given the complexity of the clinical picture, further days of clinical stability are necessary to resolve the prognosis,” the Vatican said Thursday.

    Related News
    ‘She’s not following Senate rules’ — Ireti Kingibe counters Natasha’s claim
    Top 10 African countries with the highest number of seaports and trade terminals
    Afenifere in UK, US disown Oba Olaitan as leader

    Francis — who has been pope since 2013 — has continued to work in hospital, where he is in a special papal suite on the 10th floor.

    He also has been doing breathing exercises in between resting and praying, according to the Vatican.

    This hospital stay is the fourth of his nearly 12-year papacy and his longest.

    In recent years, he has had surgery on his colon, a hernia operation, and pain in his knee and hip that have caused him to rely on a wheelchair.

    There has been speculation as to whether Francis might now resign, especially as his schedule has been packed with papal duties amid celebrations for the holy Jubilee year.

    “If the pope survives, many imagine that he will want to finish the Jubilee year, but that afterward, when he is 89, he will face the question of whether or not to resign,” Italian Vatican expert Marco Politi told AFP.

    Francis has always been open to following his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who in 2013 stepped down because of his physical and mental health.

    But the Argentine pope, before his hospitalization, had repeatedly said it is not yet the time — and may never be.