The trend in maternal mortality in an upgraded tertiary facility in North Central Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: The Millennium Development Goal 5(MDG-5) aims at reducing Maternal Mortality Ratio MMR) by 75% by the year 2015 as compared with the 1990 estimates. There is paucity of recent information on the pattern of maternal mortality in the north central Nigeria. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to document the trend and causes of maternal deaths at the Federal Medical Centre, (FMC), Lokoja and to suggest ways of improving safe motherhood services at the centre and in Nigeria. METHOD: This is a review of case records of 44 aternal deaths that occurred between 1st January 2005 and 31 December 2009 at FMC, Lokoja, north central Nigeria. RESULTS: Forty four maternal deaths occurred and 9496 live births were recorded, giving a Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of 463 per 100,000 live births. The annual MMR decreased from 779/100,000 live births in 2005 to 392/100,000 live births in 2009. The unbooked patients constituted about 68.2% of maternal deaths and about half (56.9%) of women that died were within the age range of 25-29 years. Hypertensive disorders (31.8%), abortion complications (18.2%), obstructed labour/uterine rupture (9.1%) and hemorrhage (9.1%)were the leading causes of death. CONCLUSION: We observed a decreasing trend in annual maternal mortality at the hospital but more commitment is needed to achieve the MDG-5.

Systematic review of climate change impact research in Nigeria: implication for sustainable development.

There is evidence that Nigeria is already experiencing environmental challenges attributed to climate change (CC) and its impacts. This has clearly highlighted the need for knowledge-based strategies to help plan adequate mitigation and adaptation measures for the country. One of the basic requirements to ensure such strategies is the development of a database of national CC research. This will aid in the assessment of past and present scientific publications from which directions for future study can be mapped. The present study used standard, systematic, and bibliographic literature reviews to analyse the trend, focus, spatial variability, and effectiveness of published research on CC impacts in Nigeria. Four thematic areas of CC impact research were defined: Agriculture, Environment, Human and Multi-disciplinary study. A total of 701 articles were found to be relevant and the review shows that CC impacts and adaptations in the literature vary across research categories and locations. The period between 2011 (68 studies) and 2015 (80 studies) showed a tremendous rise in CC impact research with a peak in 2014 (84 studies). Studies in the agriculture category had the highest publications in 23 States of Nigeria. The review revealed three research gaps: (1) lack of research that investigated the magnitude of present and potential future impacts in the aquatic environment (2) little attention on CC impacts and adaptation in the Northern regions of Nigeria (3) absence of study investigating the effects of multiple variables of CC at the same time. The findings suggest that it would be useful to advance CC research in Nigeria beyond perceptive approaches to more quantitative ones. This is particularly important for highly vulnerable animals, crops, locations, and for better planning of adaptation strategies.

Asphaltene detection using surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).

Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy using a gold substrate and excitation at 514 nm can detect sub parts per million quantities of asphaltene and thereby petroleum. This simple format and sensitivity make it transformative for applications including sample triage, flow assurance, environmental protection and analysis of unique one of a kind materials.