Assessment of Legibility of Handwritten Prescriptions and Adherence to W.H.O. Prescription Writing Guidelines in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria - Kaduna State, Nigeria.

Introduction: The issues of incorrectness and incompleteness for written prescriptions may result to dispensing errors and unintended outcomes of care. The objective of the study was to assess the legibility of handwritten prescriptions and adherence to W.H.O. prescription writing guidelines in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria. Method: A cross-sectional prospective study design was used, and existing prescriptions were sampled from selected in-patient and outpatient pharmacy units of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria. This was approved by the ethics and research committee of the institution. The prescriptions were then evaluated for quality based on the layout, legibility, and clarity of the details in the prescriptions and screened for medication errors. Result: The extent of prescribing drugs by generic name was (68.37%), the legibility percentage was moderate and the percentage of prescriptions in which details of the drug, route of administration, and duration of treatment were complete was 85.23%, 80.80%, and 82.40%, respectively. The doctor's signature (84.87%) was present in the prescriptions. Many of the prescribers did not use to indicate patients' weight, age, and clinic on prescriptions, these are deviations from good prescribing practices while total medication error was 38.01%. Conclusion: Prescribers have a duty of care to their patient and a professional duty to their colleagues (pharmacists) to ensure drug prescriptions are readily identifiable. Interventional techniques such as the use of printed or electronic prescriptions can improve the ease of interpreting information and reduce medication errors.

Measles outbreak in Ethiopia amid COVID-19: an effect of war-induced hampering of vaccination and pandemic.

Measles, a highly infectious viral disease, is a leading cause of death among young children in many developing countries, including Ethiopia. Despite Ethiopia being the first large country to conduct a mass immunization campaign for measles in 2020 following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, in which over 14.5 million children in the country were vaccinated, there was another outbreak of measles in the country in the year 2022, especially in the eastern parts of the country. According to the WHO, a total of 9850 measles cases were suspected, out of which 5806 cases were confirmed, with 56 deaths (CFR=0.6%) in Ethiopia from January to 30 September 2022. The total number of cases crossed 10 000 cases by the end of October 2022. Amid COVID-19 and war times in Ethiopia posed serious challenges for the under-5 children to get access to vaccination against measles. We, therefore, urge the Ethiopian government to reach an amicable and diplomatic agreement with the civilians causing internal and intraethnic wars in the country as soon as possible, as this would prevent further hampering of measles vaccination for the Ethiopian people, most especially the children.