The number covid-19 cases in Nigeria on Wednesday increased by 184. The new cases were reported across 21 sates and FCT as follows ; 51-Lagos, 23-Jigawa, 16-Bauchi, 16-Katsina, 14-Kano, 10-FCT, 10-Rivers, 9-Kwara, 5-Delta, 5-Kaduna, 4-Sokoto, 4-Oyo, 3-Kebbi, 3-Nasarawa, 3-Osun, 2-Ondo, 1-Ebonyi, 1-Edo, 1-Enugu, 1-Anambra, 1-Plateau, and 1-Niger.
Nigeria now has a total of 4,971 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 1,070 recoveries and 164 deaths, as at 13 May 2020. A total of 29,404 samples have been tested for the virus since the outbreak began, according to the data on NCDC website.
Ten states with the highest number of confirmed cases are;
In Africa, total of 69,947 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed, with 24,224 recoveries and 2,410 deaths. North African region still has the highest number of confirmed cases at 23,731 with 9,197 recoveries and 1,297 deaths. It is still followed by West African region with a total of 20,782 confirmed cases, 5,975 recoveries and 431 deaths according the African Center for Disease Control as at 21:46 GMT on Wednesday.
WHO emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan, on Wednesday, warned against trying to predict when the virus would disappear while speaking at a briefing through a press virtual conference from Geneva.
A”massive effort”. Will be required to control the virus even if a vaccine is found. It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” Dr Ryan said.
“HIV has not gone away – but we have come to terms with the virus.” He said he doesn’t believe “anyone can predict when this disease will disappear”.
According to WHO, over 100 potential vaccines are currently under development. However, Dr Ryan noted there are other illnesses, such as measles, that still haven’t been eliminated despite the vaccines being available.
In India, world’s second most populous country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that India would provide 20 trillion rupees ($265 billion) in fiscal and monetary measures to support an economy battered by a sweeping weeks-long lockdown to fight the novel coronavirus. Under the stimulus, a $40 billion collateral-free loan will be provided for small businesses.
India has been under strict lockdown, however on Monday it started to gradually ease the lockdown. The country has confirmed a total of 78,055 cases of Covid-19, with 26,400 recoveries and 2,551 deaths.
In Honk Kong, 23 straight days without having new local cases of Covid-19 has ended, after a 66 year old woman and her 5 year old grad daughter without any recent travel history tested positive for the virus, the government confirmed on Wednesday. The city have been gradually reopening since the 14th day of no local cases
However, this new discoveries has dashed the hope that outbreak has been contained in the city and raises a fresh question if the world can actually be free of Covid-19, given that the virus could be spread by people without symptoms.
Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong said that “this is the challenge of Covid-19, the fact that so many cases are asymptomatic. Even though there have been no cases for nearly three weeks, that doesn’t mean that the virus is not in circulation. This is a problem not just for Hong Kong but for all countries as they seek to move out of lockdown and restart their economies.
Recall that Investogist reported on Tuesday that in Wuhan city of China, 6 cases had been confirmed over the weekend after the city has not confirmed any local cases in several weeks. Which prompted China to say that it is looking at plans to test all 11 million residents of the city.
A new study by the UN finds that Covid-19 pandemic is projected to remove four years of growth from the global economy at a cost of $8.5 trillion and push an additional 130 million people into extreme poverty.
Americans will get Sanofi’s Covid-19 vaccine before the rest of the world if the French pharmaceuticals giant can successfully create one. The US was first in line to fund Sanofi’s vaccine research and has the right to the largest pre-order, CEO Paul Hudson said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Sanofi is one of the biggest players among the dozens of companies in a race to develop the much needed vaccine for covid-19. It had partnered with U.K. rival GlaxoSmithKline Plc on the project supported by the U.S. and says it could make 600 million doses annually — a capacity that Hudson said he aims to double.
The United Sates has accused China of hacking its coronavirus research. The officials in the US said that China-linked hackers are targeting organisations researching vaccines, treatments and testing of Covid-19.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), a division of the homeland security department, issued a rare joint warning on Wednesday, They said “healthcare, pharmaceutical and research sectors working on Covid-19 response should all be aware they are prime targets” of hackers
They added that cyber-thieves had “been observed attempting to identify and illicitly obtain valuable intellectual property and public health data” on treating the coronavirus.
In Brazil, new cases of covid-19 continue to rise. The country has overtaken France to sit at 6th position of the countries with the highest number of confirmed cases. It has recorded 185,838 cases, 72,597 recoveries and 13,010 deaths.
Globally there are 4,336,973 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 1,540,464 recoveries and 296,252 deaths, according to John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
184 new cases of #COVID19;
51-Lagos
23-Jigawa
16-Bauchi
16-Katsina
14-Kano
10-FCT
10-Rivers
9-Kwara
5-Delta
5-Kaduna
4-Sokoto
4-Oyo
3-Kebbi
3-Nasarawa
3-Osun
2-Ondo
1-Ebonyi
1-Edo
1-Enugu
1-Anambra
1-Plateau
1-Niger4971 cases of #COVID19 in Nigeria
Discharged: 1070
Deaths: 164 pic.twitter.com/jcwyRPnAvv— NCDC (@NCDCgov) May 13, 2020
Written by
Ifunanya Ikueze
