ABUTH offers invitro fertilization services, says Vice-Chancellor

ABUTH offers invitro fertilization services, says Vice-Chancellor
. . . in collaboration with Nisa Reproductive Health Centre

Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) in collaboration with Nisa Reproductive Health Centre Kaduna started offering Invitro Fertilisation (IVF) services, according to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kabiru Bala.

The Vice-Chancellor was speaking at Ahmadu Bello University’s 43rd Convocation held on Saturday, 27th January, 2024 during which he disclosed some of the major developments recorded by the University since the last event held on 28th January, 2023.

Prof. Bala disclosed with the delight that the first IVF-conceived baby was delivered on 16th May, 2023, with a weight of 3kg, making it the first in any public hospital in Northwest Nigeria.

Other subsequent deliveries via this technology, according to the Vice-Chancellor, had been successfully undertaken.

“While the embryology laboratory of the private facility was used for the collection of female eggs and male sperm for fertilization, the other aspects of treatment and patient management were undertaken at ABUTH”, he explained.

The Vice-Chancellor, therefore, called on government and other private financiers to assist the University with funding for a complete Centre for Reproductive Medicine which would run both clinical and academic activities.

Prof. Bala also spoke on research activities at the institution’s Africa Centre of Excellence on New Pedagogies in Engineering Education (ACENPEE), which according to him, had continued to focus on five main areas.

These areas include engineering content knowledge application and skills, effectiveness of different engineering education pedagogies in enhancing teaching and learning, as well as development and production of prototype engineering pedagogy tools for classroom application.

They also included implementation and evaluation of E-LEDs and development of new multimedia (pictures, diagrams, animations, videos, etc) to mediate E-LEDs.

“Box-Behnken Experimental Design for the Process Optimisation of Catfish Bones Derived Hydroxyapatite: A Pedagogical Approach” was another research output from ACENPEE, he further said.

He explained that the synthesis, optimization, and evaluation of synthesized hydroxyapatite (HAP) from catfish bones (CB) was carried out to achieve optimum processing conditions and sustainable pedagogical approaches for the preparation of hydroxyapatite scaffolds for tissue engineering.