Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Thursday [today] detailed his experience with COVID-19 as he recovered from the contagion. Sanwo-Olu, while narrating his experience with journalists at the State House in Marina, Lagos, said he had headache, sore throat and cough.

“It was not mild. I was not asymptomatic. I felt all of the things you would feel – headache, sore throat, cough, tiredness, I felt them. It’s real.” “When they tell you to check your oxygen level, these are real facts that people need to know. “There is something they call it in medical term; you will not know that you are on reserve.

The Federal Government has made a passionate appeal to relevant state ministries of health to avoid shutting COVID-19 treatment centres across the country. 

Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, made the appeal on Thursday [today] during the joint national briefing of the PTF in Abuja. While expressing the determination of the Federal Government to pursue the issue of vaccines in a safe, effective and cost-friendly manner,

The Federal Government has suspended the passports of 100 in-bound airline passengers who failed to take the second test of COVID-19 after arriving in the country. Mr. Boss Mustapha, Chairman, Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, disclosed this at the Presidential Taskforce National Briefing on Tuesday, in Abuja.

Mustapha, also, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, said that the names of the passengers would be published on Jan. 1, 2021, while the suspension of the passports would last for six months. “With effect from January 1, 2021, passports of the first 100 passengers, who failed to take their day-seven post-arrival polymerase chain reaction test, would be published in the national dailies,” he said.

A Consultant Family Physician at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Dr. Olujimi Sodipo, says the way a person’s feet and nails look can reveal underlying medical conditions and the true state of health. She notes that by merely examining the feet, several useful clues that could be indications of some ailments, including diabetes and arthritis, could be identified.

According to him, the shape and appearance of the feet and toes can offer important diagnostic clues to one’s health condition. “There is supposed to be a normal shape of the feet and, of course, there are some normal variants that also occur.

Virologists and other health experts on Wednesday warned that low COVID-19 testing by state governments was dangerous to the battle against coronavirus. The experts stated this in separate interviews with The PUNCH as the Nigerian Medical Association attributed the recent surge in coronavirus cases to the reopening of schools without necessary preparations.

Recall that the Federal Government had on Tuesday lamented that despite resources available to states, COVID-19 testing they were conducting was still low.

An estimated 10.4 million children in seven countries, including Nigeria, will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, the UN Children’s Fund said in a statement on Wednesday.

“As 2021 approaches, UNICEF is deeply concerned for the health and well-being of 10.4 million children projected to suffer from acute malnutrition next year in those countries,” the statement said, citing the affected countries as Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says deaths from COVID-19 in the African continent is now 64,760. The agency also disclosed that there are now 2,727,345 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Africa as of 31 December. 

Africa CDC disclosed this in via a tweet on its official Twitter handle @AfricaCDC on Friday. According to the agency, 2,279,397 COVID-19 patients have recovered from the disease in Africa. 

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, has urged the presidency to probe allegations that N3.8bn public funds meant for the Federal Ministry of Health, teaching hospitals, medical centres, and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, are “missing, mismanaged, diverted or stolen.”

SERAP specifically urged the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and other appropriate anti-corruption agencies, to investigate the claims, which were documented in Part 1 of the 2018 audited report released last week by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi says the state government is committed to building healthcare structures that will help improve neonatal and infant care. Abayomi stated this on Friday during a symbolic event organised by the health ministry to welcome the first babies of the year in four state-owned health facilities.

According to the commissioner, the government will also continue to implement programmes that will help reduce neonatal and infant mortality and promote safe motherhood. 

As Nigeria prepares to receive its first consignment of COVID-19 vaccines, two scientists have cautioned the Federal Government against the proposed mass vaccination. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, in December 2020 revealed that the Federal Government had planned to acquire vaccines worth N400bn.

Ehanire had said that the N400bn would be able to vaccinate 70 percent of Nigeria’s 200 million population. Nigeria had 88,587 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,294 deaths as of Saturday.