Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital has started using maggot therapy to help stop the need for amputations in diabetic patients.
Maggot therapy is a medical treatment where live, clean maggots (baby flies) are placed on wounds that are not healing. These maggots eat dead tissue and clean the wound to help it heal.
The hospital’s spokesperson, Hauwa Muhammad Abdullahi, said in a statement on Wednesday that at least 15 patients have already received the treatment and have been discharged successfully.
She explained that the treatment was introduced by Dr. Mustapha Ahmed Yusuf, a Nigerian medical anthropologist. He returned to the hospital in 2019 after completing his PhD in Medical Anthropology in Tehran.
Dr. Yusuf said countries like the UK and USA have been using maggot therapy for over 16 years. It’s a simple treatment that can be done at the patient’s bedside, so there’s no need for surgery in the operating room.
He added that some African countries also use maggot therapy to treat serious wounds. It helps patients heal faster and spend less time in the hospital.
The hospital is currently the leading example for maggot therapy in Nigeria. This is because it is the only major hospital in the country with a medical anthropologist.
The spokesperson also said medical anthropologists work closely with orthopedic and plastic surgeons. Orthopedic doctors often suggest maggot therapy as a final option before choosing to amputate a limb.
Aisha Abubakar, a 55-year-old diabetic with a badly infected foot, shared her story. She said, “Maggot therapy is amazing. God saved my foot from being cut off. Just two hours before my surgery, a young man came to check my leg and said he wanted to try something. He came back, placed small creatures on the wound, and covered it.”
“A few hours later, I started feeling something in my foot again. I hadn’t felt anything in that foot for a long time—even before I came to the hospital,” she added.
Another patient, Bashir Abba, who stayed in the hospital for over three months getting different treatments, said the therapy helped clean his infected wound, stopped the infection, and gave him new hope.
