Health

The Federal government on Monday cautioned that cases of COVID-19 will definitely increase in the coming weeks owing to the ongoing #EndSARS protests across the country. The Chairman, Presidential Taskforce, PTF, on COVID-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Mr Boss Mustapha, while issuing the warning in Abuja, said despite the appreciable success recorded so far in the fight against COVID-19, the ongoing protest may spark up a second wave of the virus.
 “I can say it authoritatively that with the ongoing protest across the country, in the next two weeks the cases of COVID-19 would have increased. Each and everyone that attended the protest and did not put up any form of protection are likely going to spread the virus. When people contract the virus during the protest gathering, they will go back home and spread it.

About 113 new cases of COVID-19 has been confirmed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Saturday. The NCDC via its Twitter handle revealed that a total of 14 States recorded new infections in the country in the last 24 hours. The health agency said, the 113 new cases brought the nation’s confirmed COVID-19 infection cases to a total of 61,307. It also mentioned that four persons died from complications resulting from the virus.

US President, Donald Trump, has said he is getting better as he gave an update on his COVID-19 diagnosis, from Walter Reed military hospital on Saturday night. However, in a video posted on his Twitter page, he said, “I’m starting to feel good” as he promised that he was fighting the virus for COVID-19 patients “all over the world”. “You don’t know, over the next period of a few days, I guess that’s the real test, so we’ll be seeing what happens over those next couple of days,” he said.

In an effort to ramp up COVID-19 testing capacity, the Nigerian government has developed a molecular test kit named the SARS-COV-2 Isothermal Molecular Assay (SIMA). With the new kit the country can now reach higher daily target of testing. The minister of state for health, Olorunnimbe Mamora, who made this information known at the bi-weekly Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday, said the new NIMR can produce results in less than 40 minutes. “The Nigeria Institute of Medical Research has developed a molecular test for COVID-19 that can give results in less than 40 minutes.

The world's coronavirus death surpassed 990,000 on Saturday nears one million, with the US, Brazil and India making up nearly half of the total, according to Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The United States of America remains the country worst hit by the pandemic, with 7,065,019 cases and 204,249 deaths, making up more than 20 percent of the global death toll. Although the number is likely to be much higher as testing rates in many countries remain low, with virus-related deaths not being recorded.

Nigeria on Friday recorded one of the country's lowest daily infections in almost four months with 156 cases recorded. The latest daily figure brings the total number of infections in the country to 54,743. This is according to an update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Friday night.