…As Millions Suffer Hearing Loss Globally
As the nations of the world celebrate the 2021 World Hearing Day, early detection, speedy intervention and others including relevant vaccination of children and pregnant women have been observed as necessary steps towards mitigating the soaring incidents of hearing loss among the world population.
According to a health expert, Dr. Victor Ikenga, who spoke on a programme in Port Harcourt recently common causes of hearing loss world over and especially in the developing world include genetic factors, conditions during first few days of life (during birth), low birth weight of babies and few others are responsible for major hearing loss. Others, he noted include loud music in youth, some commonly taken drugs with adverse drug reactions industrial noise, ageing, obstructed labour and poorly treated jaundice are also critical causative factors.
Dr. Ikenga harped on early intervention to reduce high incidence of hearing loss on Nigerian population. He said that it is necessary to ensure that adequate pre-natal and post-natal care are looked into to stem the tide of the ugly development. For instance, he pointed that pregnant women who contracted measles will put the lives of their foetus at risk unless when detected early with relevant vaccinations to safe their babies from having hearing loss at birth. He noted that efforts must be deployed to improve health care facilities in the nation’s primary health sector to ensure good management of labour among women, while calling for regular public enlightenment about hearing loss and its consequences.
He also recommended hearing screening for babies at risk to help mitigate or check the trend.
The 2021 world hearing day (celebrated today) came under the theme: ‘Screen, Rehabilitate, Communicate’.
And, according to the latest statistics by the World Health Organization, WHO, about 466million people world over suffer from hearing loss. Out of this number, 34 million are children with majority of them from the third world countries including Nigeria.
