URINALYSIS AS THE MOST IMPORTANT LAB TEST

 URINALYSIS AS THE MOST IMPORTANT LABORATORY TEST:

When most people visit a medical laboratory because they are having what we call: "general malaise"( which is a general feeling of ill health), they usually insist that what they want to do is malaria and typhoid fever test.

Even health care providers like nurses who operate a chemist or maternity are guilty of this same malaria and typhoid test only, request for their patient.

What people fail to understand is that urinalysis which is a simple, rapid test is more important to be done for a sick patient than malaria and typhoid fever test. Why?

Urinalysis is a simple chemistry test that tells you the condition of the entire body system in one fell swoop. 

If a patient has malaria which usually causes the breakdown of red blood cells by the spleen, the end products of red blood cells breakdown which include urobilinogen and bilirubin will appear in the urinalysis test result. Hence, a knowledgeable and experienced health professional will know if you have malaria by simply looking at your urinalysis result.

Also, if a patient has diabetes mellitus (excess glucose in the blood) which has not been previously diagnosed, urinalysis will reveal by way of glucose scoring 2+ or 3+ in the person's urinalysis result that the patient has come down with diabetes mellitus.

If a person has kidney disease or failure, urinalysis will help to detect the situation by the presence of protein in the person's urinalysis result which may score 2+ or 3+.

If a person has any form of hepatitis, the presence of bilirubin in the urinalysis result which may score 2+ or 3+ will help to reveal that.

If a person has serious bacteria infection, Nitrite which is the end product of breakdown of nitrate by bacteria in the body system will test Positive in the urinalysis result. A positive Nitrite result in urinalysis test instantly raises the suspicion of a knowledgeable and competent health professional about a likely severe bacteria infection in the patient.

Moreover, urinalysis test is never complete without viewing of the patient's urine deposits under the microscope. Hence, if a person who has treated malaria very well but still having fever is actually down with acute bacteria infection which may not be of salmonella (typhoid fever) origin, the presence of many pus cells(dead white blood cells) in the patient's urine microscopy will help to reveal that why the patient is having persistent fever is due to acute bacteria infection. This will lead to either aggressive blind treatment with broad spectrum antibiotics or request for urine culture to determine the actual antibiotics for wiping off the acute bacteria infection.

Can you now see why urinalysis is the most important lab test? It's about the cheapest lab test yet the most important because it will reveal your entire health status through that singular test. That explains why people on free medical mission usually do only urinalysis for the community people in addition to checking of blood pressure and blood glucose before they give out drugs for free to the community members during their free medical outreach.

There are other benefits of urinalysis test like when blood appears in the urinalysis result of an old man or an old woman. For the old man, it may be indicative of infection or prostate disease. For the old woman, it may be indicative of infection or a developing disease in her reproductive system.

Hence, urinalysis is an all encompassing test and without argument is the most important test you can do in a medical laboratory.

So, when next you go  to a medical laboratory to run tests for yourself or for your patient, remember to mention urinalysis test as the number one test you want to do 

My advice to patients usually is: if you don't have money to run other tests, please pay for only urinalysis test. It's the most important test. It's the test that X-rays your entire body system at once. And it's a life-saving test 

Izu Godson Udemezue is a Medical Laboratory Scientist and a senior partner at Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory (CHDL) Uruagu -Oraifite.

The ABCs of HIV Prevention

 THE ABCS OF HIV PREVENTION:

 Recently, Anambra State was ranked 5th in HIV prevalence and transmission in Nigeria. That's bad enough!

Since Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory is situated in Nnewi, Anambra State, It behoves on us as part of our social responsibility to educate the public on how to prevent HIV infection.

Preventing HIV is as simple as ABC if you strictly follow the rules. Hence, we have the acronym: The ABCs of HIV Prevention.

A: stands for ABSTINENCE. This is for young people in primary school, secondary school, colleges of education, polytechnics and universities. You need to understand that you have a future to protect. Sex is worth waiting for. Please ZIP UP! Avoid having sex with anyone until you get married.

 Understand that there is a purpose for sex. Sex is not just for fun and pleasure, it's essentially for procreation. A lot of criminal abortions happen daily because so many young people want the pleasure in sex, but they don't want the pregnancy and responsibilities that follow the pleasure. The primary purpose of sex is for procreation and when purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable.

B: Stands for BE FAITHFUL. This is especially for married couples. Be faithful to your one faithful partner. If husband and wife are faithful to each other, there's no way HIV will creep into their matrimonial bed. It's extra-marital affairs that bring HIV to the matrimonial bed. And what's heartbreaking is that once the man is infected(as is mostly the case), he infects his wife with the incurable HIV virus.

A word of caution here: There's nothing like being faithful to your boyfriend or girlfriend. Nobody owes you faithfulness if you are not legally married to that person. Also, there's nothing like being faithful to a married man as his side-chick. That's a waste of faithfulness.

C: Stands for CONDOM USE. This is for single people who sometimes say that: "body no be firewood". Or married people who have extra-marital affairs. If you must have sex with someone who is not your spouse, please use condom CONSISTENTLY AND CORRECTLY. Nowadays, we have female condoms for women and male condoms for men and they are both cheap and easy to use. If you no fit hold body, abeg use condom.

S: Stands for SAFE SEX. This is especially for young people especially teenagers who are discovering their sexuality. Safe sex is anything a man and a woman(or two persons of the opposite sex) do intimately that did not involve sexual intercourse. That includes: kissing, necking, petting, rubbing of body, and yes, even masturbation.

Masturbation (a..k.a self love) is safe sex because it will not give you HIV. It's one of the issues where science is at variance with religion/spirituality. While science encourages masturbation as a safe sex practice that helps to prevent HIV spread, religion regards it as sin.

What we believe as biomedical scientists is that God will forgive you for masturbating and you will remain HIV free. But if you committed fornication or adultery with an HIV infected person without condom, God will forgive you for the fornication/adultery, but you will remain an HIV infected person because HIV has no cure. So, if masturbation on one hand and fornication/adultery without condom with an HIV infected person on the other hand are both evils you must choose from, which will you choose?

So, there you have it; the ABCs of HIV Prevention. If everyone in Anambra State in particular and Nigeria in general strictly practises these simple ways of HIV prevention, HIV will soon be a part of history in our society.

Izu Godson Udemezue 

Biomedical Scientist and senior partner at 

Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory (CHDL), Nnewi. 

P.S. CHDL NNEWI in partnership with FAMILY HEALTH INTERNATIONAL(FHI) offers FREE HIV TEST to all residents of Nnewi and its environs. Please avail yourself of the opportunity to know your HIV status. It's FREE OF CHARGE. Thank you.

FHI POWERS FREE HIV TESTS

 HIV TEST NOW FREE COURTESY OF FAMILY HEALTH INTERNATIONAL (FHI).

There is a recent, heart-warming development in town. A non-governmental organization known as Family Health International (FHI) has taken it upon themselves to build capacity through training of ad-hoc staff to tackle the menace of HIV in our society.

The ad-hoc staff have been trained to distribute HIV strips to private Health Facilities including private hospitals and private medical laboratories especially in rural areas FREE OF CHARGE. Please note carefully that the HIV strips are given FREE OF CHARGE to the private hospitals and private laboratories. 

FHI mandates the private Health Facilities to do HIV tests for all their patients FREE OF CHARGE. The ad-hoc staff of FHI have been trained to do confirmatory tests free of charge for patients who tested positive to HIV in the private Health Facilities where the test strips supplied for free HIV testing by FHI were used.

If a person is confirmed HIV positive, the FHI trained ad-hoc staff will start supplying the person with HIV treatment drugs FREE OF CHARGE. The ad-hoc staff have been trained to regularly deliver the free HIV drugs to the patient even in their homes(or anywhere most convenient for the patient).

What FHI aims at achieving with this wonderful and kind gesture is that NO ONE SHOULD DIE OF HIV IN NIGERIA AGAIN because of stigmatization or because they don't have money.

The HIV drugs are not only given FREE OF CHARGE to the patient and delivered to him/her at home at no cost, they are also convenient to use. Just one caplet a day after food and he/she is good to go.

HIV infected persons who daily take the drugs given free of charge by FHI look very healthy, live a normal life and can raise a healthy, happy family.

Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory (CHDL), Nnewi is proud to partner with FHI to offer free HIV test to all Nigerians. So, anyone who walks into our Medical Laboratory  to run blood tests will get tested for HIV free of charge as a routine test.

You can also walk into our facility and demand to do only HIV test. Don't forget that it's free of charge courtesy of family health international.

God bless family health international (FHI).

P.S. For further inquiries, call the phone number on our blog profile. Thank you.

CHDL... your total health is our focus.

LIST OF TESTS AVAILABLE AT CHDL

 Dear Esteemed Client,

 The following are the tests available at Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory (CHDL), Nnewi.

1. Total health check including blood pressure check(FREE OF CHARGE), blood sugar test, HIV test(FREE OF CHARGE), hepatitis B and C tests, culture test and any other tests that might be requested by you or your referring health care provider.

2. Blood group and genotype tests. 

3. Urinalysis Test

4. Typhoid fever and malaria parasite tests

5, Blood  level check(PCV and Hb)

6.Culture test to check for infection

7. Test for worm

8. Test for ulcer

9. .H pylori test.

10. Test for fertility including sperm count, ovulation tests and culture tests. 

11. Pregnancy test

12. Liver function tests.

13. Kidney function tests 

14. PSA (prostate specific antigen) test

15. Hormonal balance tests

16. Tuberculosis test

17. Syphilis test.

18. Test for arthritis.

19. Test for pneumonia.

20. And many other tests.

21. We give you health information for free too and will patiently answer all your health related questions.

 

We are always here to serve you.

 

CHDL...your total health is our focus.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

 OUR ATTENTION HAS BEEN DRAWN TO SOME UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUALS DOING LAB. TESTS INSIDE ORAIFITE AND ISSUING RESULTS IN THE NAME OF COMPOSITE HEALTH DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY (CHDL), NNEWI.

 WE WISH TO INFORM THE GENERAL PUBLIC THAT THERE'S ONLY ONE CHDL WHICH IS LOCATED IN NNEWI. CHDL HAS NO BRANCH INSIDE ORAIFITE AND HAS NO OTHER BRANCH. 

WE WILL INFORM THE PUBLIC BEFORE WE EVER SCALE OUR SERVICES AND START ANOTHER  BRANCH OF CHDL IF IT BECOMES NECESSARY IN FUTURE.

PLEASE BE GUIDED.

SIGNIFICANCE OF CULTURE AND SENSITIVITY TEST

 If you live long enough, you would experience one bacteria infection or the other. 

Most adults have experienced bacteria infection especially Staphylococcus aureus infection.

Staph is a very stubborn bacteria. Difficult to wipe away completely from the body once infected by it.

Staph. infection and other bacteria infections are responsible for over 50% of infertility in married couples. Infection with Staph. can cause low sperm counts and can prevent conception too.

For a pregnant woman, serious staph infection can cause miscarriage, low birth weight of the baby or even malformation of the baby.

Bacteria infection can be treated by blind treatment whereby your doctor or health care provider gives you antibiotics without performing culture and sensitivity tests through a medical laboratory. This practice is encouraged especially in emergency cases such as septicemia(severe blood bacteria infection) whereby the patient is already unconscious and waiting until lab culture result is out will mean the patient might have died before the lab result is out. It's also encouraged in community practices where there's no lab that has the capacity to perform lab culture and sensitivity tests.

However, the best way to identify a particular bacteria infection in a patient and to wipe it away completely from the patient's body system is to perform a culture and sensitivity test. This is the gold standard for the most successful treatment of bacteria infection.

In performing a culture test, a sample for test, say: urine, sputum, semen (sperm), high vaginal swab, stool, blood, wound swab, etc is collected aseptically (under sterile conditions) from the patient. Culture is done to multiply the incriminating bacteria in the infection.

Then, out of the multiplied incriminated bacteria, an isolate of the bacteria is used to do antibiotic susceptibility test(a.k.a sensitivity tests). The essence of this test is to determine which specific antibiotics would wipe off the bacteria as it will manifest in the sensitivity test. The antibiotics given to patients in treating bacteria infections are the same antibiotics used for performing this sensitivity test. A clear and wide clearance of the incriminated bacteria is seen around the antibiotics that will clear the infection when the sensitivity test is concluded

Consequently, when the patient is given any or a combination of those antibiotics that cleared the infection in the sensitivity test, the infection is equally wiped off completely from the system of the patient. That's how important culture and sensitivity tests are. And that's why it's the gold standard in the treatment of bacteria infections especially stubborn bacteria infections like Staph aureus infection.

At CHDL, we pride ourselves as a culture and sensitivity tests center of excellence boasting of a wide range of broad spectrum antibiotics for sensitivity tests not available in a regular medical laboratory.

CHDL... your total health is our focus. ❤️🔥

SIGNIFICANCE OF GENOTYPE TEST

 SIGNIFICANCE OF GENOTYPE TEST:

Genotype test is the test done to determine the GENE TYPE of an individual. 

Fundamentally, an individual can have AA, AS or SS GENE TYPE (a.k.a GENOTYPE). There are other less popular genotypes like the AC and the SC genotypes.

Genotype test is significant or important because if two AS individuals marry each other, they stand the chance of having one or more SS children. SS simply means sickle cell. Sickle cell is a genetic disease. A child having sickle cell disease is a burden to his/her family.

The child often has health crises and may need blood transfusion from time to time.

Hence, no couple would want to give birth to an SS child.

It is therefore wise and mandatory that every two individuals intending to get married should do genotype test in a registered medical laboratory before they get married. This is to find out if their genotypes are compatible for marriage.

At CHDL, we pride ourselves as a genotype test center of excellence. We have helped several couples who have an SS child to unravel the mystery behind their child's chronic health challenge.

In one case, it turned out on our testing that the mother of the child who believed she was AA before she got married was actually AS just like her husband. This shows she got a wrong genotype result from the private Laboratory where she did the test previously.

Another case involved a poor couple who didn't do genotype test before they got married. They complained of having had four children each of which died in childhood. And their fifth child of about six months old was sick and they were scared he might die too.

On testing at CHDL, it turned out that the parents were both AS genotype and the little child was SS. We advised them accordingly.

We therefore advocate at CHDL, that no two individuals should get married in this information age and digital world without first performing their genotype test in a reliable Medical Laboratory.

It is instructive to confirm the genotype test result in a government or mission hospital if you first did it in a private Medical Laboratory.

The implications of a wrong genotype test result are so far-reaching to approach it carelessly, in a hurry or shabbily. Make sure it's repeated in a government hospital or mission hospital especially if your partner's genotype is confirmed to be AS and you are not very confident of the source of your own genotype result.

To the health and happiness of your family!

CHDL...a genotype test center of excellence.