Funmi Ogundare
Medical consultants have referred to as for sustained federal funding, elevated native manufacturing of important medical commodities and stronger implementation of maternal healthcare interventions to handle Nigeria’s persistently excessive maternal mortality fee.
They warned that with out enough funding and efficient supply of current authorities programmes, efforts to scale back preventable maternal deaths may stall, leaving tens of millions of Nigerian girls uncovered to being pregnant and childbirth-related issues.
The consultants made the decision Thursday on the eighth Abimbola Aina Omololu-Mulele annual lecture, held on the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, the place clinicians and well being directors examined structural challenges affecting reproductive healthcare within the nation.
In his keynote, ‘Human Reproduction Through Evolutionary Perils: Moving Nigerian Women from Danger to Safety’, the President of the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria (SOGON), Prof. Okechukwu Christian Ikpeze, mentioned Nigeria’s maternal mortality burden mirrored systemic failures in healthcare entry, infrastructure and well timed medical intervention.
He defined that childbirth remained a fancy organic course of, noting that human evolutionary developments, together with upright strolling, enlargement of the mind and the passage of infants via the start canal, had elevated the dangers related to replica.
Ikpeze acknowledged: “Nigeria’s maternal mortality statistics represented the loss of mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and breadwinners. Every preventable maternal death reflected a failure of healthcare systems and collective responsibility.”
Citing estimates from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group, he mentioned growing nations accounted for about 99 per cent of the estimated 260,000 maternal deaths recorded globally annually.
He famous that the worldwide maternal mortality ratio stood at 197 deaths per 100,000 stay births in 2023, whereas the present annual discount fee of 1.6 per cent remained inadequate to obtain the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) goal of fewer than 70 deaths per 100,000 stay births by 2030.
Presenting Nigeria’s figures, Ikpeze mentioned the nation’s maternal mortality ratio declined from a peak of 1,168 deaths per 100,000 stay births in 2015 to 1,065 in 2020 and 993 in 2023.
He, nonetheless, warned that the nation remained considerably off monitor in reaching its 2030 goal of lowering maternal mortality to 140 deaths per 100,000 stay births.
He recognized obstetric haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, sepsis, unsafe abortions and extreme anaemia throughout being pregnant as main preventable causes of maternal deaths requiring pressing consideration.
On authorities interventions, the SOGON president emphasised the Federal Government’s Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiatives (MAMII), which seeks to enhance entry to high quality maternal and new child healthcare.
The initiative consists of free Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC) in designated centres, capability constructing for frontline well being employees, the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System (NEMSAS), nationwide postpartum haemorrhage tips and the scientific scale-up of the E-MOTIVE care bundle.
In their remarks, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Prof. Oluwole Familoni and Provost of the school, Prof. Ademola Oremosu, referred to as for stronger collaboration amongst authorities businesses, skilled medical our bodies and neighborhood networks to translate analysis findings into sensible healthcare interventions.
They pressured that maternal healthcare programmes should attain girls in labour no matter their geographical location or financial circumstances.
The occasion featured the presentation of findings from the third version of the 2024 Abimbola Aina Omololu-Mulele annual endowment analysis grant award.
The grant recipient and Principal Investigator, Dr. Ayokunle Moses Olumodeji, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in Gynae-Oncology on the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and affiliate lecturer on the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), introduced findings from a examine assessing the diagnostic accuracy of the MobiLab HPV E6/E7 Oncoprotein speedy point-of-care take a look at in opposition to standard pap smear testing for detecting cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade two or worse (CIN2+).
The examine, carried out amongst 98 girls referred for colposcopy at LASUTH between January and December 2025, discovered that the speedy point-of-care take a look at had a sensitivity of 32.3 per cent and specificity of 72.7 per cent.
Conventional Pap smear cytology recorded a sensitivity of 40.3 per cent and specificity of 86.7 per cent.
Although the variations in sensitivity and specificity between the 2 exams weren’t statistically vital, the examine recorded poor settlement between them, indicating that they recognized completely different subsets of sufferers.
Olumodeji cautioned that the speedy point-of-care take a look at couldn’t at present exchange standard cytology as a standalone screening methodology amongst high-risk referral populations.
He beneficial bigger multicentre and community-based research throughout Nigeria’s geopolitical zones earlier than the take a look at might be thought of for routine scientific substitution.
Speakers on the occasion recommended the legacy of the donor, Chief Abimbola Aina Omololu-Mulele, noting that endowment funds offered sustainable help for analysis and will generate advantages throughout generations.
