UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said a mass-produced antibody test for covid-19 that can be done at home will be a game changer – but this type of test has limitations
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Always forgetting birthdays? Terrible at staying in touch? New tech promises to turn you into the best buddy ever. We put it to the test
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A man named David, who came into Nigeria from Maryland, United States of America, and was suspected of having Coronavirus, has now tested negative for the virus.
This was confirmed by a senior staff of the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital, Ondo Town, Ondo State, where the man had been kept under observation all the while.
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The man had travelled into Ondo to visit family members when he fell ill and showed signs of the virus.
“His test returned negative. He does not have the virus” the source said.
With Thursday’s revelation, any fears initially raised by news of his suspected infection have since been erased.
Meanwhile, management of the hospital on Thursday announced a shut down of activities as a result of the continued spread of the virus.
In a statement, management of the facility said that all units except accident and emergency ward will be closed to the public in order to reduce the risk of patients and staff being infected with the virus.
Patients on admission, who are in stable conditions, have been advised to go home and continue with prescribed medication.
The statement said, “The management of University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital, Ondo Town, has decided to partially shut down its normal activities as a precaution to steam the spread of Coronavirus.”
Nigeria now has 65 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and one recorded death.
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The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic
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PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry is considering the use of antiviral drug ‘Favipiravir’ to treat Covid-19 positive patients, according to its director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pix).
He said the drug, which is also known as ‘Avigan’ and ‘Fuhaikang’, was not yet registered in the country.
“We (MOH) can approve it. However, we need to test the drug as it has certain side effects. So we need to be careful when using it,” he said during the daily press conference on Covid-19 here today, explaining that the drug was known as Avigan in Japan, and Fuhaikang in China.
In the event that the drug is approved, patients will need to be closely monitored to ensure its effectiveness, he explained.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said 800 ventilators were required in government hospitals, out of which 500 would be designated for the specific use of Covid-19 cases.
The ministry had purchased 229 units of ventilators, with 54 units already received. The remaining 175 units are expected to arrive by early April, he said.
The private sector had also agreed to lend 64 ventilators for use in government hospitals, he added.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin recently announced an allocation of RM500 million for the purchase of medical equipment such as ventilators and Intensive Care Unit equipment, additional personal protective equipment (PPE) for public medical personnel, and for laboratory requirements for Covid-19 tests. – Bernama
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Efforts to scale up testing for the covid-19 coronavirus has been slow in some countries, and some tests are more accurate than others, which could make it harder to slow the spread
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At this unique time in history when the world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes stands in solidarity with governments and communities as they seek to maintain health services
and continue to address the needs of patients suffering from HIV and tuberculosis (TB).
Despite being preventable and treatable, tuberculosis remains the world’s biggest infectious killer and the leading cause of death among people living with HIV (PLHIV), responsible for 32% of the 770 000 lives lost to HIV in 2018. People
living with HIV are far more vulnerable (nearly 20 times more) to TB infection than people without HIV and are three times more likely to die during TB treatment.
While there are proven interventions that reduce TB deaths – such as provision of TB preventive treatment, adoption of novel diagnostics for earlier TB diagnosis and linkage to treatment, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) – we are far behind
in scaling these up, and diagnostic and treatment gaps remain, with only half of estimated TB cases among PLHIV reaching care in 2018, only half of estimated PLHIV with TB receiving ART, and less than half of PLHIV new on ART initiating TB preventive
treatment in a subset of countries which reported globally.
On this World TB Day, WHO highlights two key interventions to reduce unnecessary TB deaths among PLHIV:
As the new Director for the Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes, I support current efforts to continue and to take to scale TB activities. It’s Time for solidarity!
HIV programmes are encouraged to ensure that TB preventive treatment, including shorter WHO-recommended regimens, with updated guidance launched today, are provided to all eligible PLHIV as part of a routine package of care, including provision of ART, and that treatment completion is ensured.
In recent months, WHO has also released guidelines for use of a bedside urine TB-LAM test to accelerate earlier TB diagnosis, with significantly expanded eligibility criteria. As this test is “point of care” with the potential for earlier
TB diagnosis and treatment initiation, HIV programmes should consider these recommendations as they enhance strategies for TB diagnosis among PLHIV, including as part of a routine package of advanced HIV care.
It’s Time to urgently scale up TB preventive treatment and TB diagnosis and strengthen referral and linkages to TB treatment at HIV service delivery points in all countries and continue to scale-up ART among PLHIV with TB. This applies to all populations
at risk, including children, pregnant women and marginalized groups, to ensure no one is left behind.
WHO calls for continued collaboration in countries across health programmes for harmonized and integrated policies and service delivery, and engagement with communities and other sectors. Unless HIV programmes scale up interventions to close these
gaps in prevention, diagnosis and treatment both for TB and HIV, countries and their development partners will not meet our common target: a 75% reduction in TB deaths among PLHIV between 2010 and 2020. HIV mortality cannot be reduced without addressing
the leading cause: tuberculosis.
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The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control has finally added Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, and Bala Mohammed, Governor of Bauchi State, to its real-time count of confirmed cases of persons infected with Coronavirus in Nigeria.
SaharaReporters had on Monday exclusively reported that Kyari was infected with the virus as his test result came out positive but the NCDC refused to confirm it.
Similarly, Mohammed’s result came out positive on Tuesday with a release from the state government informing the public about it.
In a post on the official Twitter handle of the NCDC, the agency stayed silent on the cases and simply said one case was confirmed in Abuja and another in Bauchi.
“Two new cases of #COVID19 have been confirmed in Nigeria: one in FCT and one in Bauchi.
“The cases have travel history to Germany and the UK,” the NCDC tweeted.
With the addition of the two, the total confirmed cases in the country hit 44.
For a breakdown of cases by states in real time, please see https://t.co/zQrpNeOfet
Currently;
Lagos- 29
FCT- 8
Ogun- 3
Ekiti- 1
Oyo- 1
Edo- 1
Bauchi-1Total: 44 confirmed cases#COVID19Nigeria
— NCDC (@NCDCgov) March 24, 2020
Meanwhile, SaharaReporters had reported that three staff of Kyari tested positive to COVID-19 on Tuesday.
The affected persons are yet to be identified but they are close members of Kyari’s work unit.
Since returning from the trip abroad, Kyari has had contacts with several prominent persons including Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Buhari, Babagana Kingibe, a prominent member of the ‘cabal’ and Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello.
Aliko Dangote, Governor Bello Masari of Katsina and Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, are among others that Kyari came in contact with after returning from his foreign trip.
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PUTRAJAYA: Most of the Covid-19-related deaths in the country are due to late treatment, according to Health director-general Datuk Seri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pix).
He said there were five stages of Covid-19 infection but most of them came to hospital when they were already at stage three.
“Stage one is where a person is asymptomatic but positive, while stage two is positive with mild symptom and stage three is when a patient has some form of pneumonia but does not require oxygen aid.
“In stage four, a patient will require oxygen therapy and the last stage (stage five) is when patients cannot breathe well and we need to intubate them and put them on ventilator,” he told a media briefing today.
Dr Noor Hisham also explained that in most stage four patients, their health would deteriorate fast to move to stage five.
“For example, the latest death, the patient already had breathing difficulty for the last three days,” he said.
He also said that besides late for treatment, age and comorbidities were also among factors that contributed to the Covid-19-related death.
“Some of the death cases had comorbidities and most of them were above 70 years old,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said the MOH would enhance its case detection activities.
“It means we will find the case, we test the case, and if it is confirmed, we isolate the case and give treatment.
“We will continue to do our best to look into the focus group. For example, now we know that 60% of the infection are among the tabligh group. We will go and find them and test them,” he said, adding it was to ensure the individuals from the group would not infect others. – Bernama
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KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry (MOH) has called on the people not to undergo rapid test kit (RTK) tests arbitrarily without seeking the advice of medical practitioners.
Health director-general, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pix) said it has the potential to a give wrong interpretation from the result obtained.
“The test via RTK technique which is now available in the market is to detect antibodies produced by the body as a result of an infection. The antibodies will appear in the body in five to eight days after infection.
“The RTK test which detects antibodies, cannot detect virus and it is administered for quick confirmation. As such it cannot help in the detection of initial Covid-19 cases. Therefore, RTK test is not recommended for diagnosing Covid-19,” he said in a statement today.
Elaborating further, Dr Noor Hisham said MOH is using the Real-Time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) technique at government health laboratories to detect the presence of Covid-19 virus found in the body of patients.
If the rRT-PCR COVID19 test is found positive, it means the individual has been infected by Covid-19 virus.
“The result of the rRT-PCR technique is very important in managing Covid-19 patients effectively,” he said.
In this regard, Dr Noor Hisham advised the people not to discriminate members of the tabligh congregation following the spread of Covid-19 from the cluster and should in fact assist MOH in tracing close contacts among them.
“We should not blame tabligh members, do not discriminate them, we should not stigmatise the tabligh congregation. What is important is for us to assist, trace and treat Covid-19 infection among tabligh members, their families and their contacts,” he said.
Apart from that. Dr Noor Hisham said KKM is cooperating with MERCY Malaysia to provide psychosocial support to the people especially frontliners and individuals emotionally affected by Covid-19.
They can obtain the service by contacting 011-63996482 / 011-63994236 / 03-29359935 from 8am to 5pm daily.
Members of the public can also contact the virtual health advisory team for a webinar session daily from 9am onwards at http://www.doctoroncall.com.my/coronavirus. – Bernama
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