By Ovat Abeng
The World Stroke Organisation (WSO) in partnership with Stroke Action Nigeria, on Tuesday, February 24, 2025 commence a four-days training on stroke action prevention mechanism for Anambra Healthcare givers.
It was gathered that the training which is currently ongoing at the Nigerian Medical Association NMA’s conference hall, beside the Federal Medical Centre Onitsha, the commercial city of Anambra State, has in attendence, Nurses, Medical Doctors, and other health partners in the state.
Speaking to Journalists shortly after the official commencement of the training, the WSO board member and the Chief Executive of Stroke Action Nigeria, Dr. Rita Melifonwu, said the training was necessary to enable healthcare givers in Anambra State to know how, where and when to detect stroke symptoms in a patient.
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According to her, the World Stroke Organisation WSO, was established as part of health information hub to educate and to create a continue awareness campaign on the danger of stroke disease.
“WSO’s mission is to deliver lives free from stroke by informing and educating the public about the disease, how to spot it, how to prevent it, and how to live the best possible life after stroke.
“Today stroke is the leading cause of deaths disability worldwide, but evidence suggests that almost all strokes could be prevented with action on a few key risk factors.
“Despite the evidence and potential for stroke prevention over the past decade the lifetime risk of stroke in adults over 25 has increased from 1 in 6 to 1 in 4.
“The ongoing training of healthcare workers/awareness campaign focused on bringing global attention to this new statistic as evidence of the urgent need for action at the individual and policy levels in relation to stroke prevention.
The public communication element of the campaign highlighted that one in four of us is at risk of stroke calling on everyone to take simple steps to prevent the deadly disease.
The goal of the four-days programme is to increase the WSO reach and to proved that the world can come together to show the difference it can make when we face stroke as one.
“World Stroke Organisation WSO, is currently seeking to partner with the Nigeria Government to established what we named, “Life After Stroke Centre across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, this, Melifonwu, noted, will help assist the less privilege Nigerians suffering from the disease with poor financial capacity.
She urged every Nigerian to try as much as possible to have a basic health care insurance.
In her brief speech, the consultant of the Programme, Dr. Chiamaka Okereke, also noted that the major aim of the four-days event is to brainstorm and profer a solution to the rising cases of stroke burden in Nigeria.
