A Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Lagos, Ekanem Nsikak Ekure, has advocated the incorporation of digital phenotyping of syndromic patients into routine clinical evaluation of patients in hospitals.
She made this known, while delivering the 11th Inaugural Lecture of the 2021/2022 Academic Session, on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 at the J. F. Ade. Ajayi Auditorium.
With an insightful lecture titled, “A Heartfelt Journey of Discoveries: ‘Little Hearts’, Genes and Faces”, Professor Ekure took the audience on a journey of discoveries which were the product of 20 odd years of looking into the hearts, faces and genes of children with heart disease.
She revealed that her journey started with a study of cardiovascular disorders in childhood autopsies in Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) over a 10-year period published in 2005. The study found that 4.7% of the over 2,000 children in a 10-year period had heart disease, while 7 out of every 10 children with heart disease, Congenital Heart Disease (CHD), were born with it.
Nudged by the declining number of children with Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) seen in LUTH, the Inaugural Lecturer was awarded a University of Lagos Central Research Committee (CRC) grant to conduct echocardiography in the Lagos community in 2015. Based on this study involving over 4,000 school children, Prof. Ekure showed that RHD was no longer a common acquired heart disease in children in Lagos, as only 11 children (0.27%) had RHD.
At the Lecture, Prof. Ekure revealed that the next phase of her heartfelt discoveries led to the unravelling of the causes of CHD in Nigerian children. Her research work showed that maternal infection with rubella was a frequent cause of CHD, a condition that could be prevented with rubella-containing vaccine.
According to her, another risk factor was heredity, as a third of over 700 children with CHD in LUTH had extracardiac anomalies indicative of a genetic syndrome; the most common being Down syndrome. For the prevention of cardiac diseases in children, Professor Ekure emphasised the importance of preconception care. She urged people to avoid giving birth at an advanced age and added that the government should add rubella-containing vaccine to the Expanded Programme on Immunization in Nigeria.
Professor Ekure also recommended the establishment and sustenance of cardiac intervention centres that provide care for children in Nigeria; expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme to include comprehensive cardiac care for children; compulsory pulse oximetry in all new-born babies for early detection of critical congenital heart disease; and widespread introduction of electronic medical records into clinical practice to facilitate utilization of facial digital analysis technology by clinicians, to mention a few.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Folasade Ogunsola, FAS, presided over the lecture.
Family, friends and mentors of the Inaugural Lecturer, as well as colleagues from across the university were also present.
Born on October 19, 1965 in Calabar, Cross-River State, Professor Ekanem Nsikak Ekure obtained an MBBCh from College of Medical Sciences, University of Calabar in 1988. Afterwards, she undertook specialist training in Paediatrics and bagged the fellowship of the West African College of Physicians in Paediatrics (FWACP (Paed)) in 1998.
She joined the services of the University of Lagos in 2001 as Lecturer I at the Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine and became a Professor in 2017.
