The World Health Organization urged Middle Eastern governments Wednesday to be more forthcoming with information about new coronavirus infections in order to effectively combat the global pandemic.

“We can only control this disease if we have access to information that allows us to understand its dynamic in the region” Ahmed al-Mandhari, WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean director, told an online press conference from Cairo. “We have an opportunity to contain this pandemic in our region,” he added.

People, who suspect they have caught the novel coronavirus, should not take the popular drug ibuprofen without consulting a doctor, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said. 

WHO gave the warning, on Tuesday, pointing to the ongoing research into possible negative effects. WHO’s spokesman, Christian Lindmeier, told a Geneva news conference that there are no recent studies that link the anti-inflammatory drug with increased mortality rates, but he added that experts are currently investigating the matter.

The Federal Government disclosed on Monday that despite the fact that coronavirus disease otherwise referred to as Covid-19 is yet to claim any life in Nigeria, the country was still at very high risk to it.

This is just as the government added France, Germany and Spain to its existing list of five high-risk countries with widespread community transmission. The Minister of State for Health, Adeleke Mamora, who was giving an update on the state of the Coronavirus in the country at a media briefing in Abuja, stressed the need to improve surveillance, detection and risk communications. He said:”Despite the fact that we have not recorded a confirmed COVID-19 case in the last one week in Nigeria, it is important to remember that we are still at high risk

Relevant stakeholders have stressed the need to scale up funding, improve access to prevention and treatment of tuberculosis to enable Nigeria to meet the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of ending the epidemic.

The stakeholders made the call during a news conference on Tuesday in Abuja to mark the 2020 World TB Day with the theme “It’s Time to End TB in Nigeria. Dr Berthrand Odume, the Country Director of KNCV Foundation Nigeria, said that the efforts became necessary to accelerate an end to the TB epidemic in Nigeria and globally.

Nigeria has declared five days of free health services targeting nearly 20 million people across 409 lowest-performing local government areas. For five days each in March, April and June, residents in the affected local government areas will get free healthcare, medical consultation and minor surgeries, attend health talks and receive counselling under the Integrated Medical Outreach Programme (I-MOP). 

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo launched the programme at the Township Health Cenre in Bwari, one of the six council areas in the FCT,

Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Christianah Mojisola Adeyeye, has said the agency has finalised plans to enhance control of narcotics and psychotropic substances.

She disclosed that one of the control objectives of the agency is to ensure availability for medical and scientific uses while minimising the possibility of diversion to illicit channels and abuse. Speaking at the launch and dissemination of the 2019 Annual Report of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in Lagos,

Five new cases of the COVID-19 have been confirmed in Nigeria, the new cases are reported to be from the United State (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire who confirmed this in an emergency press conference, said another five new cases of Coronavirus have been imported into the country.

The five new cases, according to him is bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to eight, even though the first two patients have been successfully treated and discharged. The minister, who made the announcement at an emergency press conference to update Nigerians on the COVID-19 spread said three of the new cases arrived from the United States (US); two of them a Nigerian mother and her six-week-old baby.

The Senate, House of Representatives and the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, yesterday, asked the Federal Government to  shut all borders and urgently consider banning non-Nigerian travellers from countries with high risk of Coronavirus (COVID-19).

The NMA wants a total shutdown of the nation’s borders, saying, at least, 730 people from high-risk countries of Coronavirus enter the country on a daily basis. This came on a day President Muhammadu Buhari approved the suspension of National Sports Festival billed for next week in Edo State, following confirmation of a third case of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

The Federal Capital Territory chapter of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) has commenced an indefinite strike in the midst of the announcement of a new coronavirus case in Lagos. In a statement signed by its President, Roland Aigbovo, the doctors said that the decision was taken after deliberations on the threat posed by the coronavirus, working conditions in hospitals and care of patients.

The striking doctors, who described the decision as a difficult one to take, said the failure of the FCT administration to pay their basic salaries for more than two months contributed in part to the decision.