Rabies is almost 100% fatal once symptoms start, but almost 100% preventable after a bite. WHO exposure categories, washing the wound for 15 minutes, rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin, and caring for patients with rabies.
Tetanus still kills in places where vaccination and clean births are not universal. Recognising lockjaw and spasms, wound prophylaxis, intensive nursing care in a quiet room, and preventing maternal and neonatal tetanus.
Measles is resurging as vaccination coverage falls. Recognising the rash, airborne isolation, vitamin A doses by age, managing pneumonia, diarrhoea and eye complications, and the nurse’s role in vaccination.
DR Congo has recorded 10,141 Ebola cases and nearly 5,000 deaths. WHO says progress is being made but more access and trust are needed, as the TUMAINI trial tests whether the existing Ebola vaccine can protect against Bundibugyo.
A bill to establish a Federal College of Nursing and Midwifery in Ifako/Ijaiye, Lagos, has passed second reading in the House of Representatives. Its sponsor says Nigeria is “losing them faster than we are training them.”
The Federal Government and the West African Health Organisation met in Abuja to review a plan to motivate and retain health workers across ECOWAS, as figures show thousands of Nigerian nurses leaving every year. Nigeria also says it has no further Ebola cases.
Africa CDC is providing about US$1.5 million in financial, technical and operational support to Kenya, including 10 public health experts and lab supplies, as its Director-General met Health CS Aden Duale.
How nurses identify severe acute malnutrition with MUAC and oedema, the life-threatening complications (hypoglycaemia, hypothermia, infection), therapeutic feeding with F-75, F-100 and RUTF, and why rehydration is different.
Kenya says its Ebola outbreak is a single cluster of nine cases, four of them health workers who cared for the first patient. The first contacts were due to leave quarantine from 25 October; officials say the end is “within reach”.
The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights says NANNM leaders plan to sell Nurses House, 43 Churchgate Street, Victoria Island, to fund a project in Abuja, and wants a caveat placed on the property and nurses’ welfare prioritised.