IN an unequivocal term, the Presidency yesterday said that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua who is undergoing treatment for a heart condition in Saudi Arabia, would not resign, according to CNN yesterday.

President Yar'Adua and the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan will continue in their respective roles and the latter will not assume presidential duties, a spokesman said.

Yar'Adua has acute pericarditis -an inflammation of tissue around the heart - and is responding well to treatment, said Salisu Banye, the President's doctor.

The illness was diagnosed last week after the President complained of chest pain following prayers at a mosque in, Abuja.

Yar'Adua was taken to the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he had his last check-up in August, his doctor said.

But the presidency did not say when President Yar'Adua who has been diagnosed for Churg-Strauss syndrome would return to the country.

Giving fresh insight into the heart-related disease, Dr Femi Adelowo, a Professor of Medicine/Consultant Rheumatologist at the Obafemi Awolowo College of Medicine, Shagamu, and a columnist with The Guardian wrote that Churg- Strauss Syndrome 'is a rare condition and fewer than 400 cases have been reported in medical literature."

"It is a type of vasculitis, affecting the very small blood vessels in the body viz- arterioles, venules, capillaries," he explained. "It shares this same slot with other conditions such as Wegener's Granulomatosis, Microscopic Polyangiitis. They all have a common identifying blood test called Anti-Neutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody (ANCA)

According to Prof. Adelowo, "Vasculitis refers to inflammation of the inner part of the blood vessels, the conduit pipe that carries blood to various parts of the body. When blood vessels are inflamed, they could be ruptured, spilling blood all over the area supplied. They could also be obstructed by clots or scar tissue thereby reducing blood flow to the areas supplied. The resultant effect may be starvation of nutrition and oxygen to such areas.

"Churg- Strauss Syndrome may affect most organs or structures in the body. It most especially affects the lungs, nerves, and kidneys. It mostly presents about the age of 50 years. When it affects the lungs, it usually presents as late onset asthma, usually increasing in intensity with the severity of the vasculitis."

Speaking on the cause of the disease, he said: "This is uncertain but various germs have been implicated as well as a predisposing gene. What is certain is that it is an auto- immune condition in which the soldiers of the body (immune competent white blood cells called lymphocytes) are waging a war against parts of the body. There are various suggestions (a) change in the cell membrane constituents such that the 'soldiers' of the body are unable to recognize what is their 'own' (b) presence of 'rebel' soldiers among the white blood cell population (auto- reactive cells) that will normally react against the body, just as there are normally rebels in the human society, willing to bring it down!! (c) loss of the normal 'mai-guard' function of some population of lymphocytes such that they are incapable of destroying the 'rebel' auto reactive cells (d) 'Friendly Fire' syndrome in which a group of soldier lymphocytes, in their bid to attack certain germs, end up attacking cells of the body as well because of the similarity in their cell membrane composition- a case of 'mistaken identity'

"It is a type of vasculitis, affecting the very small blood vessels in the body viz- arterioles, venules, capillaries. It shares this same slot with other conditions such as Wegener's Granulomatosis, Microscopic Polyangiitis. They all have a common identifying blood test called Anti- Neutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody (ANCA).

"Vasculitis refers to inflammation of the inner part of the blood vessels, the conduit pipe that carries blood to various parts of the body. When blood vessels are inflamed, they could be ruptured, spilling blood all over the area supplied," he concluded.