Daily COVID Tracker: Nigeria records 48 infections, and n’assembly to review COVID spending

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control on Wednesday recorded 48 cases of COVID-19. Here are five updates about the pandemic this Thursday. 

EU drug regulator asks J&J to conduct more studies on its vaccine

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has asked Johnson and Johnson (J&J) to conduct more studies on its COVID vaccine following reports of death.

A woman in Belgium was said to have suffered a fatal blood clot after being vaccinated with the vaccine.

“The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is aware of media reports of a blood clot with fatal outcome in a 37-year-old woman in Belgium following vaccination with COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen,” CNN quoted EMA to have said in a statement.

“In order to assess the impact of the possible link between vaccination and TTS, EMA requested the marketing authorisation holder of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine to carry out a series of additional studies.”

Biden asks intelligence community to review report on COVID-19 origins 

President Joe Biden has asked the US intelligence community to review information about the origin of coronavirus — whether it came from contact between humans and animals, or from a research laboratory in China.

In February, the World Health Organisation (WHO) team of researchers said it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab and that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal was the most likely scenario.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Biden said the intelligence community has “coalesced around two likely scenarios but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question”.

“As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” Biden said.

“Here is their current position: ‘while two elements in the IC leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter – each with low or moderate confidence – the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.”

Biden said he had asked US intelligence agencies “to redouble their efforts to collect and analyse information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” and report back to him in 90 days.

Nigeria records 48 COVID infections

The NCDC reported 48 fresh COVID-19 infections across five states and the federal capital territory (FCT) on Wednesday.

The figure is the highest number of new cases recorded since the start of the week.

Lagos recorded 22 infections, followed by Rivers, and Enugu with 11 new cases each.

Other states that recorded new positive samples are Kaduna (2), FCT (1), and Gombe (1).

This brings the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria to 166,146.

However, the NCDC added that “today’s report includes 0 cases from Plateau, Nasarawa, Kano, Osun, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo and Ekiti States”.

It also said only one person recovered from the infection on Wednesday, raising the number of discharged patients to 156,529.

The agency’s report showed that zero deaths were recorded for the third day, leaving the fatality toll at 2,071.

FG delivers 40 operational vehicles to 36 states, FCT

Sadiya Umar-Farouq, minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, has handed over 40 operational vehicles to coordinators of state COVID-19 Action Recovery And Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES).

Nneka Anibeze, media aide to Farouq, disclose this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.

According to NAN, the vehicles procured by the federal project support unit of the ministry will assist the state coordinators of the programme in alleviating the suffering of ordinary people in the country.

The NG-CARES is a federal government initiative with support from the World Bank to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

NASS to review spending of COVID-19 funds 

Senate President Ahmad Lawan says the national assembly will review how COVID-19 funds and other resources are being utilised by government agencies.

Lawan spoke on Wednesday at the public presentation of the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) Publication titled: ‘A Political Economy of Pandemics and Consequences of COVID-19 for Nigeria’.

The senate president said the national assembly will continue to review the measures put in place to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

“We will equally maintain oversight of government interventions to ensure comprehensive reporting on how funds and other resources were utilised by relevant government agencies during the pandemic,” he said.

COVID-19 IN NIGERIA