|
HEALTH INTERACTIVE WITH DR AMINU MAGASHI Rivalry among Health Professionals: The Polio Experience
Now that the heat is off about the Polio saga in Nigeria with only 2
issues
barely remain, for one, is the need to resume Polio Eradication
Programme
In Kano and I believe stakeholders within and without are putting
heads
together and working round the clock toward the final push and
condemning
polio to history book. The second issue is for us to come up with
lessons
learnt over the imbroglio and up course to commence documentation on the
series of events that unfolded over the last two years that culminated
into
the entire episode with the aim of helping students of history, health
related researchers and groups working on other diseases to be able to
assess inputs, outputs, mistakes and challenges to ensure effective
programming and planning in the near future.
My aim today is to dispassionately examine the role of health
professionals
in their various capacities on the said matter with the hope of helping
interested and worried readers on who deserve to do what and what. The
rivalry among health professionals may be as old as the noble profession
itself, such bad blood used to commence right from undergraduate
level on
the possible field of study one chooses to aspire, a prospective
surgeon,
internal physician and gynecologist will be jokingly refer to a
butcher,
aspirin doctor and a one percent doctor respectively. One another angle,
medical students and doctors in most cases refer others as Para-
medicals,
while this word ' Para -medical appears derogatory and mischievous,
usually
it used to creates a dichotomy and friction in some working places,
notably
between a doctor and a nurse. In another development, medical doctors
still
look down upon those who read Pharmacy even in the areas where
they know
best , also friction exits between a pharmacist and a
pharmacologists, one
is bound to hear the former accusing the latter of using
his tag for
self aggrandizement.
The Polio saga over the last two years, really has expose this
rivalry the
more, although very unhealthy, discouraging and condemnable, but
alas, one
is bound to see people of the same profession taking side with their own
and accusing others of sabotage and unsavory activities. A
renowned
medical doctor who happens to be an immunologist reportedly denounced
and
rejected the research work over the said contaminant discovered inside
polio vaccine simply because the researcher happened to be a pharmacist
not
a medical doctor. Also another renowned medical doctor and a public
health
consultant condemned such discoveries as False Positive simply because
even
out of his bewilderment, he could not imagined anything bad to come out
the
work of World Health Organization and UNICEF, whom he worked with on the
same immunization exercise since seventies.
In another development, the pharmaceutical dons are not comfortable with
a
pharmacologist heading a team of researchers on polio in one of most
controversial state in the country which was tagged 'The Major Reservoir
Of
Polio In Africa By WHO. There is also the issue of qualification of who
should head the National Programme Of Immunization (NPI) which for now
is
being administered by a Hospital Pharmacist. A lot of people
believe that,
that seat should only be reserved and occupied by a medical
doctor,
notably among those that vehemently believe so, is one seasoned
journalist
and a public commentator who either accidentally or incidentally join
the
band wagon of dancing to the gallery of the notion that only
a doctor is
eligible to occupy that position.
Looking at the various field of pharmacy, Pharmaceutical
/Medicinal
Chemist is some one that deals with analysis of drugs, design and
synthesis
to be able to know the different fractions of what made the drug,
concentration, active and passive ingredients of such drug. Where
as a
Pharmaceutics deals with the technology of formulation and production of
drugs and a Pharmacologist deals with pharmacokinetics which entails the
effect of the body on the drug, this ranges from absorption,
distribution,
metabolism and excretion and also pharmaco-dynamics which entails effect
of
the drug on the body to cause the desired physiological effete.
A medical doctor that study Immunology during a post graduate
training
deals in simple language with how the body recognize a foreign body (
antigen ) and development of a soldier ( antibody ) to destroy that
antigen, other issues deals with various diseases due to immunological
reactions, auto immune diseases to mention but few. The principle of
vaccine is based on immunological theories, by injecting a dead or
attenuated virus, the body response by producing antibody against such
micro organism.
The trend globally now is that any health professional is eligible
to read
public health or it branches which deals with community
health with
respect to distribution of diseases, demography, population, risk
factors ,
research, design, implementation and monitoring and evolution. A
Virologist
deals with viruses, strains, genetic make up as well various
classifications and what the virus can cause.
With respect to determination of contaminants within polio
vaccines and
other drugs, one on one, the most qualified expert to handle such is a
Pharmaceutical Chemist. The work of an Immunologist And Pharmacologist
is
when the vaccine get into the body, they are the most qualified to say
whether combination of vaccine with estradiol will cause so and so harm
or
not, short and long term effect, side effects of the vaccine alone or
with
estradiol and whether the concentration of the estrdiol is capable of
causing harm or not. An Immunologist is in best position to do research
on
the estradiol , to know whether it can generate a process of
producing
permanent antibodies as to warrant rendering females infertile, also
whether the combination of the vaccine and the estradiol will produce
any
special complex and antibodies. In another angle a Virologist would be
able
to tell us if the polio virus discovered in Botswana is same with the
one
found in northern Nigeria with respect to strains and genetic make up.
Lastly for the position of an NPI boss, I am of the opinion that any
health
worker who has additional qualification in public health will do well,
after all the work of NPI is not certifying vaccine safe but massive
immunization. As for the research on polio vaccine about its safety or
other wise, it is not the monopoly of one health professional but
a
collective effort of various experts mentioned above in a committee with
all of them doing one thing or another to establish a fact . Dr Magashi Is The Executive Director Of Community Health And Research Initiative, Kano, Nigeria. |