Point One

It was a hard fought battle of will, but one guaranteed to turn out an upset. After digging in its heels for three months against being numbered among Nigerian states where Covid-19 has made landfall, Kogi State fell to the case count last week with two confirmed infections. That leaves Cross River only as at the time of writing this piece – among Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) – standing with zero record since the country’s index case was reported on 27 th February 2020. Kogi had tag teamed with Cross River until it was credited with two cases by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) last Wednesday – a day that Nigeria recorded an unprecedented daily count of 389 cases. Neither Cross River nor Kogi State was spared mud fight over the claim of being coronavirus free. Federal medical authorities and stakeholders even within the states accused both state governments of avoiding testing of samples as could show up their true statu...

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic across the world, one product that has been projected as its nemesis coming out of Africa is Madagascar’s Covid-Organics. The brew has been vocally canvassed as nature’s fatal blow against the deadly coronavirus – a potent remedy for prevention and cure of the virus from a   remote island, making the brew’s touted effectiveness all the more an ironic ambush. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has not given its nod to Covid-Organics or any other formulation in ongoing global quest for official medication to tackle down the virus, saying it has not been clinically tested. But that has not constrained the visibility of the herbal product or willingness of some African countries to try it out on their Covid-19 patients. In apparent desperation to leash the pandemic, Tanzania, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau and the Republic of Congo have adopted the brew. Nigeria also received a consignment brought in tow recently by Guinea Bissau Pr...