When Medicines Fail: Many Nigerians battle antimicrobial resistance, AMR

On a quiet July night in 2020, Moshood Lawal woke up feeling pain in his abdomen. It was sharp, relentless, and spreading from the right side. As a long-time ulcer patient, this was not like the pain he was used to.

As the pain intensified, the 64-year-old pharmacist knew something was wrong. Before dawn, Mr Lawal was already admitted to the National Hospital in Abuja, where doctors revealed the source of his pain to be kidney stones.

“After the diagnosis, I was given two options; either go for surgery or try an advanced technology to break the stones into particles I could urinate out,” Mr Lawal told PREMIUM TIMES.