Lagos – Prof. Innocent Ujah, the Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Yaba, Lagos, on Wednesday urged Nigerians to go for regular medical checks to prevent sudden death.
Ujah made the plea while addressing newsmen following the sudden death of the late former Super Eagle’s coach, Stephen Keshi.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Keshi died of heart-related ailment on June 8 at the age of 54 in Benin, Edo.
He said, “We have notices in the institute that there have been increasing cases of sudden death.
“Because of this, about a year ago, we put researchers together to look at what are the likely causes of sudden death.
“At the moment, we are doing a nationwide survey, the results are not out yet because we are still analysing the data.
“As a scientist, I do not believe that anybody dies of a natural death, even if you have been chronically ill.
`Unfortunately, when we walk round, we think we are well.
“Unless you go for medical checks, you may not know that you have problems and this is a clarion call to Nigerians to go for regular health checks.
“If we can service our cars regularly then, we should do the same to our health. We do not need to be ill before we go for checks.“
On post-mortem, the medical researcher also urged Nigerians to always go for post-mortem examination of their relations to know the actual cause of their death.
“Post-mortem is a procedure that is supposed to be the final determinant of death.
“But for religious and cultural reasons, post-mortem is not being done by many Nigerians to know the cause of the death of their relations.
“For us to be able to prevent further causes of sudden death, Nigerians should avail themselves of post-mortem whenever their relations die.
“This will help the medical community to determine the common causes of sudden death. People sleep and they don’t wake-up, some just slump and die. This calls for worry.
“But for effective outcome, post-mortem should be done because it will tell us exactly what happened,’’ he said.
Ujah, however, described the sudden death of Keshi as very unfortunate.
According to him, it is very sad. He iwas somebody who contributed to the development of the country in terms of sports while alive. (NAN)
