virus
Nigeria records 136 new virus cases, three more deaths
Nigeria reported 136 new cases of coronavirus and three more deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours, the country’s infectious disease agency, NCDC, said on Monday. With the new figures, the total coronavirus infections in the country is now 58,640 while 1,111 COVID-19 related deaths have so far been reported. The health agency said almost 50,000 patients have recovered from the virus, which translates to a recovery rate of about 85 per cent. Meanwhile, the are still about 7,400 active infections in Nigeria. The 136 new cases were reported from 13 states: Lagos (71), Rivers (23), Plateau (12), Adamawa (6), Oyo (6), Kaduna (5), Abia (3), FCT (3), Katsina (2), Kwara (2), Bauchi (1), Borno (1), Edo (1). Lagos had the highest number of new cases on Monday with 71 infections. The commercial ...
Serie A side Genoa confirm 14 virus cases
Genoa have announced that 14 members of their match squad, believed to include 8-10 players, tested positive for COVID-19 after the game with Napoli. So far, only goalkeeper Mattia Perin and midfielder Lasse Schone have been confirmed to have Coronavirus. According to Sportitalia, the latest round of swabs following Sunday’s 6-0 defeat to Napoli found the virus had spread throughout the matchday group. It was confirmed with a statement from Genoa, who acknowledged that there are now 14 members of the matchday group – which includes members of staff – who tested positive. Sportitalia and the Gazzetta dello Sport claim the figure is divided into eight players who tested positive – so that could well be 10 in total including Perin and Schone. “Genoa CFC announce that after the tests, the numb...
Virus-hit club loses CAS appeal against UCL ouster
Slovan Bratislava lost its appeal Friday against exclusion from the Champions League by UEFA after players tested positive for COVID-19 in pre-game checks. The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld UEFA’s ruling last week that ordered the Slovakian champion to forfeit a first qualifying round game in the Faeroe Islands without playing. Public authorities in the Faeroe Islands put two different squads of Slovan’s players into quarantine when a virus infection in each group was reported in tests required by UEFA. The game was postponed twice, then UEFA’s appeal panel awarded Faeroes champion KI Klaksvik a 3-0 win to advance to the next round. Slovan later said all 35 players tested negative on returning to Slovakia. Friday’s urgent ruling from a CAS judge – without yet specifying reasons – w...
NITDA warns Nigerians on fake news
Commonwealth of Nations In line with its efforts at enlightening Nigerians on the nefarious actions of cybercriminals exploiting the COVID-19 Pandemic to mislead and defraud unsuspecting victims, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has warned the general public on the recent fake news in circulation. A statement by the Head, Corporate Affairs & External Relations Corporate at NITDA, Mrs Hadiza Umar, said that the fake news tagged “Argentina Is Doing It”, being circulated over social media, particularly on WhatsApp, is aimed at causing panic and inducing terror in individuals. According to the statement, the message warns the recipient not to open a video file called ”Argentina Is Doing It” as it will hack their phone in 10 seconds. In order to lend credibili...
German pharmacists develop gargle test to detect coronavirus
Pharmacists at Germany’s University of Halle-Wittenberg have developed a way of detecting small amounts of coronavirus in gargling solution, a technique which could be used for testing. The study used samples of a solution that patients infected with the coronavirus had gargled with, successfully tracing the virus with a technique called mass spectrometry, the university said in a statement on Wednesday. The institution said the new method must be further refined before it could be used as a standard diagnostic tool to complement existing coronavirus tests. The test is highly specific as it targets protein components that exist only in the novel coronavirus, also known as Sars-CoV-2. “We measure direct peptides coming from the virus, not the genetic material,’’ Andrea Sinz, who worked on t...
Delta SSG discharged from isolation centre
The Delta State Government has announced that Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Chiedu Ebie, has been discharged from the isolation centre in Asaba where he was being treated for COVID-19. According to Olisa Ifeajika, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Ebie, who had been at the isolation centre for 21 days, was discharged on Sunday after testing negative for the virus. He said that the SSG’s discharge brought the number of discharged cases of the virus so far in the state to 583. Ifeajika added that as at Sunday, Delta had recorded 1,359 confirmed cases of the pandemic, with 745 of them active, while 31 lives had been lost to the virus. He said that Ebie thanked Deltans and other Nigerians who prayed for him and had continued to pray for other patients of the virus, includin...
Civil rights group wants Edo governor sanctioned for violating coronavirus guidelines
A civil rights group, Joint Forces For the Defence of Democracy in Edo State (JOFDES), has berated the state governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, for violating the COVID-19 guidelines of social distance, wearing of face masks, no gathering of more than 20 persons in a place in his recent defection to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Benin City. Recall that hundreds of party faithful gathered at the PDP’s Secretariat to receive Obaseki into his new found political party in the state. The group, through its leadership, Felix Osemwengie, expressed its displeasure in Benin at the weekend. “The essence of this emergency press conference today is to draw the attention of the Word Health Organization (WHO), Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Inspector Ge...
Coronavirus Antibodies Vanish a Few Months After Patients Recover, New Study Finds
According to a study published in the Journal of Nature Medicine, recovered COVID-19 patients may rapidly lose antibodies – the blood proteins necessary to stave off virus infections and the cornerstone of vaccinology. The finding raises new questions about the idea of immunity passports (a way for people considered immune to the virus to move around freely and not need to wear facemasks) and could be cause for concern about the development of an effective vaccine. Researchers in the study tested for antibodies in 37 people who had fallen ill and recovered from the virus in the Wanzhou district of China. They also tested 37 others who had tested positive for the virus but never showed symptoms – what is known as asymptomatic cases. This was in order to address two key questions that will i...
