NCDC sets up Five New COVID-19 Testing Centres

543 new cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Nigeria as confirmed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

A breakdown of the new cases across states in the country is as follows: Lagos-180, FCT-86, Kaduna-56, Edo-47, Ondo-37, Kwara-35, Ogun-19, Rivers-19, Kano-17, Ebonyi-16, Enugu-16, Delta-7, Bayelsa-4, Bauchi-3 and Abia-1.

There are now 38,344 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, and 813 deaths has been recorded. 15,815 patients have also been discharged after recovering from the disease.

A breakdown of cases by state can be found via https://t.co/zQrpNeOfet#TakeResponsibility pic.twitter.com/GoWJ5RWBRQ

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) July 22, 2020

Kano Cancels Sallah Festivities

Kano State has ordered the cancelation of traditional Sallah festivities, to mark Eid-del-Kabir celebrations in the state to consolidate the successes recorded in the fight against COVID-19, The Punch reports.

The commissioner for information, Muhammed Garba, made this disclosure in a statement shared with the press on Wednesday.

He said,

“The council, after deliberations at its weekly meeting held on Tuesday at Africa House, Government House, Kano, agreed that the conduct of Eid congregational prayers across the state, would be under strict observance of safety protocols. The congregational prayers will be strictly supervised by government officials to ensure compliance.”

The council agreed that all the five Emirs in the state would go to the Eid Prayer Grounds in their respective domains in motor vehicles.

It further agreed that there would be no visit to Shettima House, Hawan Daushe, Hawan Nassarawa, durbar, and all other traditional outings in the emirates.

The council also agreed that the government would assist in the provision of safety materials that included face masks and hand sanitisers, as well as ensure strict observance of social distancing at the praying grounds.

NCDC sets up Five New COVID-19 Testing Centres

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Tuesday said it had set up five new COVID–19 testing laboratories in the country via a post shared on their official twitter page.

The new centres will be located at Edo Specialist Hospital, Benin; ATBU Teaching Hospital, Bauchi; Rivers Indorama Company Molecular Lab; State Specialist Hospital, Amachara, Abia; and University of Abuja, Gwagwalada GX Lab.

The NCDC in a statement said the development brought the total number of laboratories in its Molecular Laboratory Network to 58.

See the tweet below:

There are currently 58 labs in 30 states with the capacity to test for #COVID19 in Nigeria

National testing strategyhttps://t.co/SHRVs5EnHs#TakeResponsibility pic.twitter.com/FxYHLlLYtx

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) July 21, 2020

Kayode Fayemi tests Positive for COVID-19

Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, says he has tested positive for COVID-19.

Fayemi confirmed this in a post shared to his official Twitter page on Wednesday, adding that he would be handing over to his deputy, Adebisi Egbeyemi.

He said;

“I took my third Covid-19 test yesterday and it came back positive. I’m generally ok and I’m already self-isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team. I’m delegating critical tasks to my deputy but will continue routine duty from home,”

Fayemi, who is the Chairman, Nigeria Governors Forum, is the eighth governor to test positive for COVID-19.

See the tweet below:

I took my third Covid-19 test yesterday and it came back positive. I'm generally ok and I'm already self isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team. I'm delegating critical tasks to my Deputy but will continue routine duty from home. JKF

— Kayode Fayemi (@kfayemi) July 22, 2020

Zimbabwe imposes Dusk to Dawn COVID-19 Curfew

Zimbabwe has imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on its citizens as it tightens its coronavirus measures, the country’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa announced this during a televised address to the nation on Tuesday, CNN reports.

The daily curfew came into effect on Wednesday from 6 o’clock in the evening to 6 o’clock in the morning and will be enforced by Zimbabwe’s security services. Business hours will be restricted between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. local time. Only essential services are exempt from the restrictions.

“Public gatherings for social, religious or political purposes remain banned,” Mnangagwa said.

The president warned that anyone who breaches the conditions or encourages actions that undermine the public health measures “will be liable and severely punished accordingly.”

Police dogs in Chile are being Trained to Sniff out COVID-19 in Humans

Police dogs in Chile are being trained to detect COVID-19 in humans by sniffing their sweat.

Chile’s National Police and the Catholic University of Chile are working on a joint project to train three golden retrievers and a labrador to detect “a new odor” in humans which in this case belong to COVID-19 patients, the university’s professor and veterinary epidemiologist, Fernando Mardones told CNN.

Mardones said,

“The selected dogs have years working on the detection of drugs, explosives and other types of things. For them, it is simply learning to detect a new smell, a new aroma. Coronavirus does not have a smell per se, but sweat does and dogs can be trained to detect the smell of a person going through an infection process. A body that contracts COVID-19 generates volatile organic compounds. A sample is taken from a person in the early stages of the infection. A gauze is left for about 15 minutes on an individual’s underarm. That’s the sample we store and use to train the dogs with”

The “bio-detector” dogs, as they are called by the Chilean police, are expected to be trained by mid-September and sent to places with high concentrations of people – such as malls, sports centers, bus terminals and airports, according to the Chilean police.

Julio Santelices from the Chilean police said,

“A dog can smell 250 people in an hour, so they can be deployed when these places reopen. Their olfactory capacity is so great that they would be able to detect the disease early on. This means that an asymptomatic person could be detected by the bio-detector dog.”

The dogs can take from two weeks up to two months to be fully trained. The canines are being taught to sit next to the individual with the COVID-19 virus they have detected, instead of “pawing” the individual as they currently do when sniffing drugs, the Chilean police told CNN.