THE UNPOPULAR TYPE- Aplastic Anaemia

Despite its name, aplastic anemia, or bone marrow failure, is more than anemia. Aplastic anemia is a rare but serious blood condition that occurs when your bone marrow cannot make enough new blood cells for your body to work normally. It can develop quickly or slowly, and it can be mild or serious. At this time, there is no way to prevent aplastic anemia.

What are the symptoms of aplastic anemia?

Fatigue

Recurring Infections that last a long time

Easy bruising or bleeding, bruising just appears on skin without any physical impact. 

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How is aplastic anemia diagnosed?

To diagnose aplastic anemia, your doctor will order tests to find out whether you have low numbers of cells in your bone marrow and blood.

What causes aplastic anemia?

Aplastic anemia is caused by damage to stem cell inside your bone marrow, which is the sponge-like tissue within your bones. Many diseases and conditions can damage the stem cells in bone marrow. As a result, the bone marrow makes fewer red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.

The most common cause of bone marrow damage is from your immune system attacking and destroying the stem cells in your bone marrow. This is a type of autoimmune illness, a disease that makes your body attack itself. Other causes of aplastic anemia include some medicines, such as those used in chemotherapy, and exposure to toxins or chemicals in the environment.

You can also inherit the condition, in rare cases.

How is aplastic anemia treated?

The conventional treatments for aplastic anemia may include the following:

Blood and bone marrow transplants, which may cure aplastic anemia in some people

Blood transfusions

Medicines to stop your immune system from destroying the stem cells in your bone marrow

Medicines to help your body make new blood cells

Removing or staying away from toxins in your environment.

Other Treatments includes

Diet

Dietary Supplements 

Exercise 

Counseling, Therapy and Prayers

Your doctor will monitor your condition and screen you for blood conditions regularly. If you take medicine that affects your immune system, you will also need to take steps to prevent infection and get annual flu shots.

What happens if aplastic anemia is not treated?

Aplastic anemia can raise your risk of complications such as bleeding, leukemia, or other serious blood conditions. Without treatment, aplastic anemia can lead to serious medical conditions such as an irregular heartbeat and heart failure. 

Lily-Rose 

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LOWER FOOD PRICES- Peppers

Peppers and tomatoes are staples consumed by majority of the world population especially Nigeria where almost every meal contains pepper. 

Peppers and tomatoes contain rich amount of nutrients including vitamin C and A which boost eye sight and immunity. It possess anti inflammatory, anti cancer properties and other amazing health benefits. 

Imagine what the absence of these essential nutrients will do to our bodies and the pressure it will put on our health sector as sick people flood in with diet deficiency related illnesses. 

The rising cost of peppers and tomatoes in the country since mid last year 2024 has now become a norm. Pepper that was retailed for ₦200 rose to ₦1,000 last year, during the Islamic festive season, surprisingly we witnessed a sudden drop back to normal prices the very next day after the festivals. It was clear that the rise in price was manipulated. 

Now that we are approaching another Islamic festival the prices has gone up, in fact prices started rising from the Muslim fast this year 2025. 

I had an opportunity to speak with three major food distributors in Lagos all having stores at the two major food hub in Lagos. These distributors go to the farms to buy foodstuffs themselves because it's cheaper. 

They explained that there is food in the farms but the main challenge is access roads! In fact there are vehicles to move the food but these drivers charge so much due to the damages on their vehicles using these bad roads Some roads are not even accessible. Since there are no roads, access to fuel station is also a challenge. A driver can ride kilometres on bike in search of fuel and diesel. 

Apart from other challenges farmers experience like the cost of fertilisers and pesticides, the construction of roads to their farms is definitely not within their control. 

Accessible roads will also give security agents access to protect farmers from attackers. These attackers take undue advantage of the lack of access roads to launch attacks on farmers in remote areas. 

The challenge of storage is also there since there is no access to power supply or steady power supply to power storage facilities for perishables, so it is safer for farmers to get their harvests into the markets as fast as possible. 

These major food distributors also said that farmers watch their foods go to waste due to delays in taking them to the markets. Distributors who get to them have to pay more using multiple bikes to move large amount of foods to the major roads which is kilometres away, then load them into a waiting truck thereby adding to the selling prices of food. 

The distributors I spoke to looked tired and stressed, a state that shouldn't be if these stressful conditions don't exist because the selling food item is quite lucrative but the stress levels take them to the hospital often. 

The state government will do well to face this challenges because it is not beyond them to construct roads into major farm areas in the country. They should create a centralised farmer's market near these major farms with accessible roads. 

The rising cost of food in the country has led to the importation of foods and other long term perishable items yet Nigeria has all the fertile land for producing her own food. 

Imagine if the government in other countries abandon roads leading to their farm lands and allow farmers to stress then there will be food scarcity all over the world. 

Our state government should take responsibility and do the needful before things gets worse. 

Lily-Rose.