A dangerous health trend is becoming popular in some parts of the Lagos metropolis. Persons who have no business in health matters are testing and treating Nigerians for health conditions they do not have the expertise to diagnose.

Investigations by our correspondent, who participated in some instant health checks in Yaba, Ikeja and Lagos Island, revealed that even operators of supermarkets and chemist shops engage in these illegal activities.

These fake operators perform malaria test, widal and blood glucose and pressure tests, among other health checks.

Findings also showed that quacks no longer wait for people to come to their stores; they advertise such tests and treatments to passersby on major streets.

For instance, one Okeke, who owns a supermarket on Davies Street in Akoka, Yaba, engaged and even treated our correspondent last Sunday.

At his shop, Okeke, whose fees range between N500 and N3, 500, brought out a malaria test kit and pricked our correspondent on the thumb to get a little blood sample after which he told her to take a seat while he took the test kit inside the badly lighted shop.

Emerging from the shop with a frown on his face, he told our correspondent who had showed no signs of fever or discomfort that she tested positive to typhoid.

“The result shows that you have typhoid for a long time. It may not be obvious now but soon you will start feeling it. Let me give you antibiotics for N1, 500 to treat the infection.”

After much haggling, the ‘patient’ paid N2,500 for the test and the drugs prescribed by his ‘doctor’.

Okeke also told our correspondent that she tested positive to malaria and asked her to pay N600 besides the cost of the anti-malaria drugs he was going to give her. She declined.

He said, “You should treat malaria; I will give you good drugs that would ensure that you do not catch it for another one year. If you cannot afford it, I will give you a cheaper one that will also do the same work.”

When our correspondent asked where he learnt how to do the tests, Okeke said he learnt the basics at a chemist shop in Ikeja.

Unlike Okeke, Mr. Rasaq operates a chemist shop on Lagos Island, where he conducts blood pressure, malaria and other health checks in the popular Balogun Market.

Rasaq told our correspondent on Monday that by stepping on one of the “sophisticated machines” in his tiny shop, he could detect heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, malaria and typhoid fever.

He said, “I bought this equipment from a Chinese man during a trade fair in Ojo. He showed me how to operate the machine and taught me how to diagnose some terrible diseases. I have saved many lives using this facility.”

Interestingly, even as he said this, he busied himself prescribing and selling drugs to other clients who were at his shop.

Appraising the development, the Registrar, Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, Prof. Anthony Imeribe, said illiterates and quacks operated over 7,000 unapproved laboratories in the country.

Imeribe lamented that though the council had closed over 3,000 illegal laboratories across the country in the last five years, operators of such outfits changed their modus operandi, as they resorted to mobile health screening to exploit innocent Nigerians.

Imeribe said, “We have inspected over 5,000 laboratories in the country and closed down over half of them. But the challenge is that these quacks carry their equipment and begin to do mobile health checks for people. I must also admit that they are brazen in the approach in this business.”

The MLSCN boss warned Nigerians to avoid individuals posing as medical laboratory experts in strange places as they usually give false results to exploit the customer or patients.

He added, “There are over 10, 000 labs of various forms in the country, only 3,000 are registered. Most of them are manned by people who have no business running health checks.

“If you want to do any health check, go and see a doctor who will give you a form to a certified laboratory stating the tests you should do on the test slip.”

On the danger of engaging in such checks, the Consultant Family Physician and Medical Director, Wellbeing Hospitals, Ajah, Lagos, Dr. Segun Aderibigbe, noted that many Nigerians developed chronic health conditions by patronising such unskilled persons.

Aderibigbe noted that since the operators of these illegal laboratories also give drugs, their action had increased the cases of drug resistant malaria and typhoid fever in the country.

He warned that many of them often dispense wrong drugs for their patients.

Aderibigbe added, “A widal test is not the only one used to confirm typhoid infection. Not everybody who tests positive to malaria needs drugs, especially when you have no symptoms. Nigerians must stop all acts of self medication.

“These quacks will make sure they say you are positive to these infections, so they can give you drugs. Many of them give wrong medication. A patient once died of a drug overdose that was given to him to treat high blood pressure by these quacks.’

Aderibigbe, who urged Nigerians not to patronise quacks, called on the authorities to check their activities.

By Adebayo Bukola for Punch