Akintola is a 1972 medical graduate of the Nigeria's premier medical school and university - The Faculty of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
He received his Bachelor of Medical Science (B. Med. Sci.) degree in Anatomy in 1969 and his M.B.B.S. degree in 1972. Upon graduation, he served his internship at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital till June 1973 when he returned to his alma mater as Lecturer II in the Department of Anatomy. In this position, he taught Anatomy to medical and allied health sciences students and undertook a doctorate programme in neuroanatomy. He completed his research studies with distinction and received his PhD in 1977.
On completing his doctorate programme, Akintola went on to train in General and Neurological surgery in the UK and was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1980. He joined the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos in April 1980 as Senior Lecturer in Anatomy and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at LUTH and left in 1982 to serve as pioneer Provost of the new medical school at the then Bendel State University (now Ambrose Alli University), in Ekpoma. Nigeria. In 1984, he left Ekpoma to found Union Medical Centre with his wife, Enitan, a classmate, friend and distinguished radiologist.
In 1995, Akintola founded the non-profit Centre for Health Policy & Strategic Studies with the mission to promote health and wellbeing in Nigeria through engagement in health advocacy, communication and research for policy and social change.
Akintola is a leading proponent of health equity and managed health care. He further believes that information and communication are critical for health improvements and empowerment in African societies. He is the Founder/Publisher of Datelinehealth-Africa.net.
Dr. Lola Dare, M.B., B.S, M.Sc. Community Physician and Medical Epidemiologist.
A graduate of the prestigious College of Medicine of the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, Lola lectures at the Dept. of Preventive and Social Medicine University College Hospital, Ibadan and serves as the Chief Executive Officer, Center for Health Sciences Training, Research and Development (CHESTRAD) International in Ibadan.
She has special professional interest in the design, implementation and evaluation of programmes in the field of reproductive health with a focus on the status and well being of young persons and women in poor resource settings.
Her expertise also spans the development of information, education and communication (IEC) materials adopting a participatory approach to content and layout.
More recently, Lola has been involved in health systems research and development in Africa with a focus on the identification of sustainable and novel strategies to engage communities, households and the wider African civil society in health development in Africa.
She is an advocate for people-centered reform and development in Nigeria and actively supports advocacy programs of the World Bank as a member of its Expert Panel for Better Health in Africa (BHA).
Lola is a member of many local and international professional and development organizations and brings her wealth of experience in health affairs to the service of users of this website.
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Dr. Freddie Peter SSENGOOBA, M.B., B.S., M.P.H Public health specialist
Freddie Ssenggoba is a graduate of Makerere Unviversity School of Medicine, Kampala, Uganda and a public health specialist with special interest in health policy and management.
Freddie works presently as a Lecturer in Public Health at the Institute of Public Health, Makerere University and conducts research in cost effectiveness, monitoring and evaluation of STI/HIV/AIDS programmes with several international organizations.
He is also interested in health communication for policy and social change in Africa.
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Professor Paget Stanfield, MD.,FRCP.,FRCPSG.,FRCPCH. Peaditrician & Child Health Consultant
Paget Stanfield is a paediatrician and child health consultant with 20 years working experience in Africa.
He worked mainly at Makerere University Medical School and the MRC Nutrition Unit as Senior lecturer and ultimately Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health from 1962 to 1974. He later joined the African Medical and Research Foundation in Nairobi from 1984 to 1992.
Now retired, Prof. Stanfield edits, reviews and acts as Consultant to 'Teaching aids At Low Cost' (TALC) and 'Tearfund'. TALC - is a non profit organisation which produces texts and manuals on all aspects of maternal and child health care in developing countries as well as slide sets and other teaching aids and resources in appropriate technology at low cost. 'Tearfund' - is a Christian based health and development partnering charity with projects in all parts of the world, but predominantly in developing countries with poor resources.
Professor Stanfield edited 'Diseases of Children in the Subtropics and Tropics' for many years till 1991.
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After completing Masters degree in Food Science and Nutrition, Annie S. Wesley started her professional career as Assistant Professor at the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University, Hyderabad, India. She then proceeded to obtain her Ph.D. at the internationally recognized Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, India. During this time she conducted research in developing a low cost nutritious supplementary food suitable for children and pregnant/lactating mothers in the developing countries. Obtaining two post-doctoral fellowship, she continued her research interests in USA (Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas) and Canada (Cereal Research Centre, Agri-Food Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba). Since 1999 she has been working as Senior Program Specialist at the Micronutrient Initiative an international not-for-profit organization based in Ottawa, Canada. She is currently involved in several wheat and maize fortification programs in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Annie will oversee editorial content expansion on nutrition and health issues at DLHA.
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Prof. Mamoun M.A. Homeida, MD., FRCP Physician and Public health specialist
Professor Homeida brings his enriched experience as a physician, administrator and public health specialist to serve on the Advisory Editorial Board of Datelinehealth Africa.net.
Formerly, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Khartoum, Sudan, from December 1991 to January 1994, Mamoun is a humane physician with strong interest in community health. He has special expertise in the control of communicable diseases including river blindness and schistosomiasis (Gezira - Sudan) - both readily controllable diseases still prevalent in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa
Mamoun teaches as Professor of Medicine at the Department of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Sudan and serves on numerous professional boards locally in Sudan and abroad, including Chairman, Lymphatic Filariasis Task Force; National Coordinator, Trachoma Control Programme; Member, Carter Center Review Board for River Blindness; Member, Global Alliance for Lymphatic Filarial Control and Chairman, The Academy of Science and Technology, Sudan.
He served as a member (1996 - 1999) and then chairman (up to present) to the Technical Consultative Committee of the African Program for Control of Onchocerciasis (APOC).
In some of the lowest-income African countries, the overwhelming reality of breast cancer is the high burden of mortality in the setting of relatively low incidence. The ratio of the mortality rate to incidence is 0.69 in Africa, as compared with 0.19 in North America. This high ratio results partly from incomplete reporting of disease but largely reflects the high proportion of women who present with late-stage disease, which is not curable even in wealthy countries.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of its author(s) and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by DLHA Inc.
Title: Nigeria: Appalling prison conditions
The deplorable state of Nigeria's prisons has been so over-flogged it has become a permanent standard for assessing a government that is uncaring of its citizens, particularly the disadvantaged, as strident calls for prison reform have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. And it is indeed amazing that Bayo Ojo (SAN), the Attorney-General of the Federation and a long-term member of Nigeria's justice system, will only now 'discover' and express alarm at the high figure of 65 per cent of inmates in the country's prisons being detainees awaiting trial. This national average obscures figures as high as 96 per cent in Ikoyi prison in Lagos, and underscores the inhumane and unacceptable delay, in many cases, up to as long as seven years, in bringing suspects to trial, even for menial offences.
Author(s): Editorial - The Guardian, Lagos, Nigeria
Posted Date: 8/3/2006
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of its author(s) and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by DLHA Inc.
Title: A tax on the sick
Poor countries have long claimed that their people suffer needless sickness and death because the price of medicines is too high. They are right. But in many cases, part of the fault lies in their own policies, which jack up prices by taxing medicines, raw materials for drugs and medical devices.
Six years ago, African leaders pledged to stop putting taxes and import duties on bed nets. These nets protect people from mosquitoes that carry malaria, but are often slapped with high textile tariffs. In many countries, government taxes at least double the price that consumers pay for nets.
In Tanzania, for example, the retail price dropped from $6 to $2.50 when taxes were eliminated, a huge help for families that live on less than a dollar a day. Usage of bed nets soared. But many governments that made the pledge have not followed through so far.
Adding sales tax or value-added tax to medicines is the most regressive form of taxation, and no country should do it.
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Copyright: New York Times, July 04, 2006. Posted Date: 7/9/2006
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of its author(s) and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by DLHA Inc.
Title: The hidden epidemic of road-traffic injuries
This year, 1•2 million people will die as the result of road-traffic accidents—accounting for 2% of deaths worldwide—and 50 million will be injured or disabled. The vast majority of this carnage (85%) will occur on the increasingly crowded streets, roads, and highways of the developing world. A report released on June 8 by the Commission for Global Road Safety, draws attention to what developing countries can do to address this public health problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of its author(s) and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by DLHA Inc.
Title: Getting the right message across on malaria
Although research on malaria needs greater support, the fight against the disease will not be won in the laboratory but with tools in the field, many of which already exist. Improved techniques are needed to communicate this reality to decision-makers.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of its author(s) and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by DLHA Inc.
Title: Bird flu: a wake-up call to the African media
The only way for Africa to combat bird flu successfully is through an effective communication strategy that enables the public to prepare both for outbreaks in their poultry stocks and for a possible human pandemic.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of its author(s) and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by DLHA Inc.
Title: Human resources for community eye care in Africa
Community eye health is about providing eye health care to the people as close as possible to where they live and as much as possible at a price they can afford. It promotes people-centred care rather than the traditional disease-centred eye care services. In order to provide effective and efficient eye care services, we need an adequate number of well-qualified, well-motivated and equitably distributed eye health workers (EHWs).
The reality today is that in most communities in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, there are very few EHWs. Those that are available are overworked, under compensated, unrecognised and very poorly motivated. The managers of district health facilities have no control or input into training, recruitment, compensation or deployment of staff and have limited knowledge or skills in how to motivate the staff working with them. This scenario may have advised the decision to make human resources development one of the main pillars of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight. If the objectives of this global initiative are to be met, then we need to have adequacy in number and quality of well- motivated EHWs at every level of eye care.
