Infectious diseases like HIV and syphilis are a significant burden in prisons, where they are more prevalent than in the general population. The confined unhygienic living conditions and high-risk behaviours contribute to the spread of infections among incarcerated individuals. This study was therefore aimed at investigating the prevalence of HIV and syphilis among inmates incarcerated in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
The COVID-19 pandemic, emerging/re-emerging infections as well as other non-communicable chronic diseases, highlight the necessity of smart microfluidic point-of-care diagnostic (POC) devices and systems in developing nations as risk factors for infections, severe disease manifestations and poor clinical outcomes are highly represented in these countries. These POC devices are also becoming vital as analytical procedures executable outside of conventional laboratory settings are seen as the future of healthcare delivery. Microfluidics have grown into a revolutionary system to miniaturize chemical and biological experimentation, including disease detection and diagnosis utilizing μPads/paper-based microfluidic devices, polymer-based microfluidic devices and 3-dimensional printed microfluidic devices. Through the development of droplet digital PCR, single-cell RNA sequencing, and next-generation sequencing, microfluidics in their analogous forms have been the leading contributor to the technical advancements in medicine. Microfluidics and machine-learning-based algorithms complement each other with the possibility of scientific exploration, induced by the framework's robustness, as preliminary studies have documented significant achievements in biomedicine, such as sorting, microencapsulation, and automated detection. Despite these milestones and potential applications, the complexity of microfluidic system design, fabrication, and operation has prevented widespread adoption. As previous studies focused on microfluidic devices that can handle molecular diagnostic procedures, researchers must integrate these components with other microsystem processes like data acquisition, data processing, power supply, fluid control, and sample pretreatment to overcome the barriers to smart microfluidic commercialization.
COVID-19 vaccine like other vaccines is developed to produce acquired immunity against the virus which causes coronavirus disease. The spread of the virus led to quick study by various science laboratories all over the world on the preventive role and the mortality rate reduction potential of covid vaccines. Celebration has been witnessed in different part of the world for the role the vaccines played against various cases arising from coronavirus infection. This review focused on the adverse event of coronavirus vaccines with perspective to the Nigerian populace. The type of vaccines approved for use by the WHO include; viral vector vaccines which has the Oxford-Astrazenca in its class, RNA vaccines, whole virus vaccines (having the Sinopharm, and Sinovac in it class), and protein subunit vaccines (with Novavax COVID-19 vaccines and (ESI, 2021), EpiVacCorona in it class). In Nigeria, about 8,439 mild adverse reactions have been reported by the National Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), following the administration of the first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The report showed that out of over a million persons who received the vaccine, 8,439 persons showed mild adverse effects, while 52 persons suffered moderate to severe adverse events on receiving the jab. Generally, the vaccine has proven to be effective in combating and limiting infection and spread of covid-19 among the citizenry.
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