If you live in America, the first 100 articles during any basic Google search will be Western-centric.
I’m not really condemning this. It’s expected that the media’s focus will lean more toward the issues that hit closest to home.
But, it’s a big, complex world out there. So let’s take a second to explore it, and learn something we may not have known before.
For example, how much do you know about the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Probably about as much as me, which is very little.
Like so many African countries, coverage and knowledge around Nigeria tends to focus on militant groups, kidnappings, oil, and human rights issues.
But with over 160 million people calling Nigeria home, there’s more to Nigeria as a country, and much more to understand about Nigeria as a part of the global rare disease community.
In 2012, several researchers released a case report detailing the pediatric ulcerative colitis (UC) diagnosis of a 7-year-old girl. Born to Nigerian parents, the girl suffered GI problems despite a lack of family history. Her parents eventually sought answers for her at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital after dysentery treatment at a previous hospital failed to fix the girl’s symptoms.
There, the little girl was correctly diagnosed with UC and is now considered in remission.
This is a major, major occurrence. UC isn’t unheard of; in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, 37.5-238 per 100,000 people are diagnosed with UC, though it occurs far less often in children.
Yet, in the entire continent of Africa, NO ONE had been reported as having UC prior to this case.
Again, let me reiterate, there are over 160 million people in Nigeria alone—and not a single one was reported as being diagnosed with UC.
Sure, part of that may be the general tendency for UC to affect people of African heritage less than Caucasians or Ashkenazi Jews. That’s true even in America.
But clearly, people in Africa do develop UC. This girl did. So that begs the question, why aren’t more people diagnosed?
Nigerian healthcare battles some serious problems. Between a lack of resources, government instability, and disintegrating trust between patients and doctors, the population struggles.
International attention focuses this healthcare struggle on disease outbreaks like malaria or Ebola, but the greater problem, in a way, is finding sustained solutions for chronic and, yes, rare conditions.
Nigeria understands this well. Change is happening—though healthcare reformers could tell you that public policy is a slow-moving creature.
And while Nigeria works to address its healthcare concerns, I suppose all of us reading this will work to address our thoughts.
Everyone with rare disease wants their full situation understood; I hope this basic information helps with doing that on a global scale.
And I hope that maybe some of this can teach us about healthcare in America. For me, Nigera’s fight reiterates the incredible importance of not only having the right people on the ground, but the right people on top when it comes to healthcare.
So please don’t throw your vote away this election year. Vote for your health, for your country, and vote with our global brothers and sisters in mind.
