The Federal Government has slashed the salaries of airport workers in the country, The PUNCH reports.
In a circular to staff dated May 19, 2020, the Management of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria said the reduction in salaries is due to airport closures occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.
The memo signed by FAAN General Manager, Administration, M.D. Musa, read, “This is to notify all staff that due to the dwindling revenue generation amidst COVID-19 pandemic, management may not be able to pay full salary to staff as from May 2020.
“However, as soon as revenue improves, the balance will be paid. This measure is to ensure the survival of the organisation.”
The PUNCH reports that the country’s airspace and airports, both local and international, were shut in March by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The President’s directive, however, permitted emergency flights such as those for medical and humanitarian purposes.
On May 6, the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, announced the extension of the closure of the country’s airports and airspace by four weeks.
The Rwandan government has taken delivery of 5 humanoid robots which can screen and deliver foods and drugs to those suffering from Coronavirus.
BBC reported that the country’s health minister, Daniel Ngamije made the announcement on Tuesday May 19. He also disclosed that the robots were brought in to reduce the exposure of health workers to COVID-19 patients.
Ngamije said;
“We need additional robots for other duties like disinfection in public space and we are working to get them.”
The 5 robots which were named Akazuba, Ikizere, Mwiza, Ngabo and Urumuri, are manufactured by a Belgium-based company.
Rwanda’s health ministry says the units have a number of abilities, including:
Screening 50 to 150 people per minute
Recording and storing patient data
Alerting health workers to abnormalities
Warning people who aren’t wearing marks, or are wearing them improperly.
There are two Coronavirus treatment facilities in Rwanda, one is on the outskirts of the capital Kigali and the other in the south-eastern town of Nyamata.
The country has so far recorded 308 confirmed cases of Coronavirus, 203 recoveries and no deaths.
A new drug is being tested by scientists at China’s Peking University.
Beijing (AFP) – A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt.
The outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to find treatments and vaccines.
A drug being tested by scientists at China’s prestigious Peking University could not only shorten the recovery time for those infected, but even offer short-term immunity from the virus, researchers say.
Sunney Xie, director of the university’s Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the animal testing stage.
“When we injected neutralising antibodies into infected mice, after five days, the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500,” said Xie.
“That means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect.”
The drug uses neutralising antibodies – produced by the human immune system to prevent the virus infecting cells – which Xie’s team isolated from the blood of 60 recovered patients.
A study on the team’s research, published Sunday in the scientific journal, Cell, suggests that using the antibodies provides a potential “cure” for the disease and shortens recovery time.
Xie said his team had been working “day and night” searching for the antibody.
“Our expertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology. When we realised that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively find the neutralising antibody we were thrilled.”
He said he hopes that the drug will be ready for use later this year and in time for any potential winter outbreak of the virus, which has infected 4.8 million people around the world and killed more than 315,000.
“Planning for the clinical trial is underway,” said Xie, adding it will be carried out in Australia and other countries since cases have dwindled in China, offering fewer human guinea pigs for testing.
“The hope is these neutralising antibodies can become a specialised drug that would stop the pandemic,” he said.
China already has five potential coronavirus vaccines at the human trial stage, a health official said last week.
But, the World Health Organisation has warned that developing a vaccine could take 12 to 18 months.
Scientists have also pointed to the potential benefits of plasma – a blood fluid – from recovered individuals who have developed antibodies to the virus enabling the body’s defences to attack it.
More than 700 patients have received plasma therapy in China, a process which authorities said showed “very good therapeutic effects”.
“However, it (plasma) is limited in supply,” Xie said, noting that the 14 neutralising antibodies used in their drug could be put into mass production quickly.
Using antibodies in drug treatments is not a new approach, and it has been successful in treating several other viruses such as HIV, Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
Xie said his researchers had “an early start” since the outbreak started in China before spreading to other countries.
Ebola drug Remdesivir was considered a hopeful early treatment for COVID-19 – clinical trials in the US showed it shortened the recovery time in some patients by a third – but the difference in mortality rate was not significant.
The new drug could even offer short-term protection against the virus.
The study showed that, if the neutralising antibody was injected before the mice were infected with the virus, the mice stayed free of infection and no virus was detected.
This may offer temporary protection for medical workers for a few weeks, which Xie said they are hoping to “extend to a few months”.
More than 100 vaccines for COVID-19 are in the works globally, but as the process of vaccine development is more demanding, Xie is hoping that the new drug could be a faster and more efficient way to stop the global march of the coronavirus.
“We would be able to stop the pandemic with an effective drug, even without a vaccine,” he said.
A Pastor, Frankline Ndifor, 39, who laid his hands on dozens of confirmed and suspected coronavirus sufferers is dead, according to Dailymail.
Dr Gaelle Nnanga, who was called to treat Ndifor after he started suffering severe respiratory difficulties a week after falling ill with the virus, said the pastor died ten minutes after treatment.
Ndifor, a candidate in Cameroon’s presidential election in 2018, claimed to cure COVID-19.
In previous weeks, sufferers had flocked to the Kingship International Ministries Church, founded by Ndifor, where he laid his hands on them and prayed for their healing.
His supporters called him a ‘prophet’ and blocked the entrance to his home in the capital city of Douala for eight hours as medical workers tried to retrieve Ndifor’s body on Saturday morning.
The Governor of the coastal region said a police force had to be deployed when supporters blocked the entrance to his home and claimed the pastor was on a spiritual retreat with God so he could not be buried.
They sang and prayed for his resurrection throughout the weekend. He was buried in front of the house on the day of his death.
Dozens of people knelt down on the ground outside Ndifor’s house in Cameroon as they prayed over the loss of a man who called himself a ‘prophet’.
Ndifor also donated buckets and soap to people in need and his last public outing was on April 20, when he went out to distribute facemasks.
Ndifor came seventh out of nine candidates in the 2018 presidential election with 23,687 votes.
There have been 3,529 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and 140 deaths so far in the central African state.
The international oil price benchmark, Brent crude, rose to its highest level since March on Monday as major oil producers cut their output levels and countries eased lock-downs.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies reached a deal in April to cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day in May and June in a bid to prop up the price of the commodity.
Brent, against which Nigeria’s oil is priced, increased by $2.88 to $35.38 per barrel as of 6:05pm Nigerian time on Monday, ThePUNCH reports.
OPEC said last Friday that the total effective global production adjustments could reach 20.1 million bpd, noting that some of its members, namely Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, had agreed on an additional 1.2 million bpd adjustment.
The Chief Market Analyst at Avatrade, Naeem Aslam, was quoted by Business Insider as saying that Monday was turning out to be a “remarkable day” for both Brent and the US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate.
He said, “The global economy is reopening and the oil glut has eased off.
“It is still unclear if the prices can continue their upward journey at the current pace, and especially if we have a valid reason for the crude price to top the $35.”
Energy Intelligence reported on Monday that OPEC might extend the cuts to the rest of the year, citing an unnamed OPEC delegate.
The Office of Communications, the regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom, has sanctioned Loveworld Limited, operators of LoveWorld, a religious cable channel, for airing “unsubstantiated claims linking the pandemic to 5G technology”.
The television network owned by the Founder of Christ Embassy, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, was also penalised for feeding viewers with the claim that coronavirus is a ‘global cover-up’.
In a statement on Monday published on its website, Ofcom stated that the caution followed an investigation into the matter.
The statement read in part, “Our investigation found that a report on Loveworld News included unsubstantiated claims that 5G was the cause of the pandemic, and that this was the subject of a ‘global cover-up’.
“Another report during the programme suggested hydroxychloroquine as a ‘cure’ for Covid-19, without acknowledging that its effectiveness and safety as a treatment was clinically unproven, or making clear that it has potentially serious side effects.
“There is no ban on broadcasting controversial views which are different from, or which challenge, official authorities on public health information. However, given the unsubstantiated claims in both these programmes were not sufficiently put into context, they risked undermining viewers’ trust in official health advice, with potentially serious consequences for public health.
“Given these serious failings, we concluded that Loveworld Limited did not adequately protect viewers from the potentially harmful content in the news programme and the sermon, and the news reports were not duly accurate. Loveworld Limited must broadcast our findings and we are considering whether to impose any further sanction.”
The PUNCH reports that Oyakhilome had alleged in April on the cable TV that the fifth generation of wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks was initiated to facilitate a “new world order”.
He had argued that the pandemic was created to instil fear among people in actualising the alleged agenda and that the 5G technology was an initiative of “the Anti-Christ”.
The comments courted controversy with the Federal Government of Nigeria and clerics knocking Oyakhilome for propounding such claims for which he would later backtrack on, saying he was only opposed to the initiative because of its perceived health risks.
“No matter how interested I am in the 5G, I’m going to put health first,” he had said in a rejoinder.
Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has reacted to the cancellation of the planned nationwide broadcast by President Muhammadu Buhari as the first phase of the lockdown ease elapses.
247NNU had reported that the President was due to address the nation but instead the presidential committee on coronavirus will brief the nation on the next step as the first phase of the lockdown ease ends
Reacting, Kanu on his Twitter page said the cancellation of nationwide broadcast shows Buhari is not fit to rule Nigeria.
His tweet read: “China must stop propping up a dead rogue regime in #ZooNigeria that has no living President or Vice.
“Cancellation of purported ‘presidential’ speech is the recognition you cannot rule 200M people with GUNS, few theatrical masks and DEEP FAKE engineered videos. “
Meanwhile, there are speculations that Buhari may impose ‘isolated lockdown in Lagos, Kano and other top states in Nigeria with high COVID-19 cases
The Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said government officials will be visiting churches, mosques, companies to evaluate their preparedness to fully reopen.
According to him, social distancing and hygiene will be prerequisites to reopening religious places of worship in the state.
Sanwo-Olu stated these at a briefing on Sunday after the State Security Council meeting at the Lagos House, Marina.
He noted that with the size of the state’s economy and numbers of businesses operating in its domain, the government could not afford to keep people and businesses on lockdown permanently.
The governor said in the coming days, officials from the Lagos State Safety Commission and Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency would be assessing the readiness of the players in identified sectors for supervised operations.
He said, “We are at a level where we are reviewing the other arms of the economy. In the coming days, we will be starting what we call Register-to-Open, which means all players in the restaurant business, event centres, entertainment, malls and cinemas, will go through a form of re-registration and space management.
“There is a regulation that will be introduced to supervise this move. We will be coming to their facilities to assess their level of readiness for a future opening. I don’t know when that opening will happen in the weeks ahead, but we want these businesses to begin to tune themselves to the reality of COVID-19 with respect to how their work spaces need to look like.
“For us, it is not to say they should re-open fully tomorrow or any time; there has been a process guiding the re-opening.
“We will be mandating LASEPA and safety commission to begin the enumeration process and the agencies will be communicating with all relevant businesses and houses in the days ahead. I must, however, caution that this should not be misinterpreted as a licence for full opening; it is certainly not. The state’s economy is not ready for that now.”
Sanwo-Olu said the government agencies would also be visiting places of worship ahead of full reopening.
He stressed that social distancing and hygiene would be fully considered in determining whether mosques and churches could re-open.
“We are reviewing and considering how the phased unlocking will happen. If we see huge level of compliance, then it can happen in the next two to three weeks. If not, it could take a month or two months. It is until we are sure all these players are ready to conform to our guidelines,” the governor said.
Sanwo-Olu urged businesses, religious houses and residents to maintain the status quo, while the state worked out modalities for full re-opening.
He also disclosed that all the 10 members of staff of the Government House who tested positive for the coronavirus had fully recovered and returned to their beats.
The Presidency has said that the President, Muhammadu Buhari, will not make any broadcast on COVID -19 updates today.
Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, made this known on Monday afternoon via Twitter.
He said the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, would update the nation during its briefings.
“No presidential broadcast on COVID-19 updates today.
“None was planned. Rather, the Presidential Task Force will during its usual media briefings bring the nation up to speed on the next steps,” he tweeted.
Madagascar has registered its first coronavirus death, a 57-year-old medical worker who suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, the national COVID-19 taskforce said on Sunday.
Taskforce spokeswoman Hanta Danielle Vololontiana said in a televised statement that the man died on Saturday night.
“A man died from COVID-19 in Madagascar … he is 57 years old and a member of the medical staff,” she said
