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Introduction: Highest proportion of most vulnerable Nigeria neonates are concentrated in hard-to-reach local villages without proper intervention devices owing to unavailable electric power. Hence, majority of needy neonates continue to lose their lives due to their inability to journey to urban cities where few inadequately equipped neonatal intervention centres are located. The Nigerian healthcare system requires the neonates to make the often-treacherous journeys, travelling into the cities in search of possible intervention. This system has continued to fail generations of precious neonates who could have survived otherwise. It is therefore imperative to device a technique that could enable the reversal of the patient traffic – by “taking our medicine to them right where they are" instead of waiting for them to come to our medicine right where we are at urban locations. Methods: Solar-based applicable devices and simplified neonatal intervention procedures operable by basic medical and nursing officers were developed. The technologies were fundamentally tailored for maintainability by the local people. This empowers the confidence of treating many of the regular neonatal emergencies at primary healthcare centre located within the villages. Uncomplicated treatable cases are believed to constitute over 65% of all cases and hence could be adequately supported. Appropriately remanufactured tricycle was modified to operate ambulatory services for referring the cases requiring specialist care in the city. Conclusion: Successful implementation of this concept and its scale-up could guarantee over 75% reduction of neonatal mortality within a controlled geographical region.

The study examined the effect of financial reforms on the performance of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study used an expo-facto research design. The study population comprises 44 manufacturing companies quoted at [1], which include Agriculture, Conglomerates, Consumer goods, Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals, Industrial goods, and Natural Resources. Thus, using a study period of 10 years (2010 – 2019) data on financial sector reforms (financial deepening, domestic credit, liquidity, market capitalisation, exchange rate and interest rate) carried out in Nigeria, being the independent variable and on performance (capacity utilization). Panel structured secondary data were collected and analyzed using the Generalized Moment of Methods (GMM) in STATA 15. The financial reform indicators: financial deepening (FDP), domestic credit, market capitalization, liquidity and exchange rate have p-values less than 0.05 (5%) level of significance, thus implying that the financial reforms’ indicators affect the performance as proxied by the capacity utilization of the manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Although, the interest rate which is one of the indicators of financial reforms returns a p-value greater than 0.05 (5%) and thus not having significant effect on the performance of the firms. The study suggested that the manufacturing firms should put measures to optimize the use of accessible funds to ensure optimal capacity utilization, as this will translate into increased productivity, profitability, and financial stability. The government should vigorously pursue monetary policies to ensure the injection of funds into the financial sector, to enhance the capacity of deposit money banks to allocate more credit to the sector at affordable rates. This will enable the optimal operation of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria.

Background and objectives: The plant kingdom has proven to be the most useful in the treatment of diseases and they provide an important source of all the world’s pharmaceuticals. Balanites aegyptiaca is an evergreen plant containing large varieties of chemical substances which possess important therapeutic properties and can be utilized as food supplement. The aim of the study was to carry out proximate, phytochemicals and identification of chemical compounds using aqueous fruit extract of Balanites aegyptiaca. Methods: The proximate and phytochemicals analysis were carried out by standard protocols of AOAC, While The phyto-constitutes of Balanites aegyptiaca aqueous fruit extract were determined by Gas Chromatography (Agilent 6890 series) coupled with HP-5MS column mass spectrometer. The helium was used as carrier gas at a flow of 1.0ml/min. The identification of the constituents of aqueous fruit extract was performed by matching their mass spectra and retention indices with those obtained from authentic samples and/or NSIT/Wiley spectra libraries, using different types of search (PBM/NIST/AMDIS) and available literature data. Results: The phytochemical analysis reveals that the aqueous fruit extract of Balanites aegyptiaca contained flavonoids (288.33+3.01 mg/100g), tannins (20.50+0.4mg/100g) saponin (320.90+10.28mg/100g), Glycoside (163.92+0.33), steroids (36.40+0.80mg/100g), alkaloids (78.67+1.03mg/100g) and phenols (227.43+1.01mg/100g) while Terpenoids and Anthraquinones, Anthocyanines were found to be absent. The proximate analysis of the fruits of Balanites aegyptiaca; revealed that the moisture content was 2.3±0.2%, crude protein 3.2±0.08%, crude fibre 16.4±0.5%, lipid content 3.1±0.7, carbohydrates 72.6±1.6% and ash content 2.4±0.2%. The GC-MS Analysis shows the presents of many important organic compounds in which three were reported to have biological activity this includes Benzene, [(methoxymethoxy)m ethyl]-, Undecanoic acid Hexadecanoic acid, ....

Background: Tuberculosis is one of the most important infectious diseases of humans and cattle in Africa. This study aimed at reporting a transmission of zoonotic Mycobacterium africanum between human and cattle. Methods: A bull was tested positive for Mycobacterium infection based on single caudal fold intradermal tuberculin test, but showed no gross TB pathological lesions after post-mortem meat inspection. The cattle rearer was also diagnosed with active pulmonary TB in a hospital. The cattle rearer’s sputum and the bull’s bronchial, retropharyngeal and mediasternal lymph nodes were obtained, processed and cultured, where tubercle bacilli was isolated. The isolates were subjected to SD Bioline TB Ag MPT64 as well as Genotype MTBC. Results: Both the rearer’s sputum as well as the bull’s lymph nodes yielded Mycobacterium africanum which is primarily a human pathogen and has rarely been isolated from cattle. Based on our knowledge, this is a first case of possible human to cattle transmission of Mycobacterium africanum in the study area. Conclusions: The isolation and identification of M. africanum species from both human and cattle is of epidemiological and public health importance especially to abattoir workers and cattle rearers. An animal attendant with active pulmonary TB may represent an important source of the disease for animals, spreading the bacilli via sputum, urine or faeces. The report highlight the importance of M. africanum and it zoonotic public health implications between humans and cattle transmission. Measures for control should be instituted.