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The recruitment of health and care workers from Nigeria and 46 other countries has been suspended by the United Kingdom government as confirmed in its updated Code of Practice (CoP).   Africa Check had earlier reported that about 5, 250 Nigerian-trained doctors are on the UK books as at April 2018, a rise of 10 per cent on the previous year.   The Sun reported that the announcement which is contained in the CoP and released by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, would help to meet UK’s target of delivering 50,000 more nurses by 2024.    The UK said CoP provide safeguards against active recruitment from 47 countries on the WHO Health Workforce Support and Safeguards list, and also aligns with World Health Organisation’s (WHO) advice on ethical recruitment to promote effective, fair and sustainable international recruitment practices.   It was further learnt that UK authorities will strengthen its ethical approach to the international recru...

The recruitment of health and care workers from Nigeria and 46 other countries has been suspended by the United Kingdom government as confirmed in its updated Code of Practice (CoP).   Africa Check had earlier reported that about 5, 250 Nigerian-trained doctors are on the UK books as at April 2018, a rise of 10 per cent on the previous year.   The Sun reported that the announcement which is contained in the CoP and released by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, would help to meet UK’s target of delivering 50,000 more nurses by 2024.    The UK said CoP provide safeguards against active recruitment from 47 countries on the WHO Health Workforce Support and Safeguards list, and also aligns with World Health Organisation’s (WHO) advice on ethical recruitment to promote effective, fair and sustainable international recruitment practices.   It was further learnt that UK authorities will strengthen its ethical approach to the international recru...

The UK and California Covid variants have reportedly merged into a newly mutated virus, raising fears the pandemic could enter a new phase.   The “recombination” was discovered in California's Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US, New Scientist reports. It's not yet known how much of a threat the recombination could pose. But if confirmed the recombinant would be the first detected in the pandemic. Bette Korber, a computational biologist at the laboratory who made the discovery, told a meeting on February 2 held by the New York Academy of Science she had seen "pretty clear" evidence, the UK Sun reported.    The recombinant carries a mutation from the Kent variant - known as B.1.1.7 - which makes the UK virus more transmissible. It also carries another mutation from the California variant - known as B.1.429 - that can produce resistance to antibodies.   Ms. Korber said: "This kind of event could allow the virus to have coupled a more infectious vir...

A German veterinary clinic has reportedly trained sniffer dogs to detect coronavirus in human saliva samples with 94% accuracy.   The dogs are conditioned to pick up the "corona odour" that comes from cells in infected people, said Esther Schalke, a vet at Germany's armed forces school for service dogs.   Filou, a three-year-old Belgian Shepherd, and Joe Cocker, a one-year-old Cocker Spaniel, are two of the dogs being trained at Hanover's University of Veterinary Medicine.     "We did a study where we had dogs sniffing samples from COVID-positive patients and we can say that they have a 94% probability in our study... that they can sniff them out," said Holger Volk, head of the veterinary clinic.   "So dogs can really sniff out people with infections and without infections, as well as asymptomatic and symptomatic COVID patients," he added.   Stephan Weil, premier of Lower Saxony in Hanover said he was impressed with the study and called for feasibi...

Chinese police have arrested more than 80 people for allegedly making counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines, as China races to inoculate millions before the Lunar New Year holiday. According to Xinhua news agency, the gang had been putting saline water into vials and selling them as COVID-19 vaccines in an operation that had been running since last September.    The police operation was carried out at several locations across Beijing and multiple cities in the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong, seizing "more than 3,000 fake COVID-19 vaccines on the spot," Xinhua said.  The suspects may have intended to send the vaccines abroad, the government-backed Global Times newspaper reported, citing a source close to a major Chinese vaccine producer. This comes as China is racing to develop homegrown jabs as they aim to vaccinate 50 million people before the start of the Lunar New Year in mid-February as hundreds of millions of people will be traveling for the festivity. ...

A research professor at Rutgers University, Andrew Brooks, who led the development of the first FDA-approved Covid-19 saliva test, died suddenly on January 23, according to a Monday, February 1 statement by the university.  Brooks, 51, was the chief operating officer and director of technology development at RUCDR Infinite Biologics, the lab that developed the saliva test used for covid-19  diagnosis.  The test, which was approved in April 2020, was authorized for use at-home a month later. According to Janet Green, who is sister to Brooks, the cause of his death was a heart attack. She called him "an intellect, an amazing scientist, an amazing father ... an amazing family man." In 2020, Brooks spoke about the impact the saliva test had as an alternative to nasal PCR tests for health care workers. "It means we no longer have to put health care professionals at risk for infection by performing nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal collections," he said at the t...

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu has given a directive to police officers to ensure the full enforcement of the COVID19 Health Protection Regulations 2021 signed into law by President Buhari, last Tuesday, January 26.   The law stipulates that anyone caught violating the COVID19 protocols should be arrested and stands the risk of paying a fine or going to jail for six months or both. Read  here.   According to a statement by the Force Public Relations Officer, CP Frank Mba, the order was to Assistant IGPs in the 17 zonal commands and their constituent Commissioners of Police (CPs) in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.  The IGP instructed them to ensure full compliance with the Regulations in their respective Areas of Responsibilities (AoR)    The statement reads   “The Inspector General of Police, IGP M.A Adamu, NPM, mni has ordered the Assistant Inspectors General of Police in the s...

China records most monthly Covid-19 infections since March 2020 The National Health Commission said Sunday that 2,016 cases were reported from Jan. 1-30. That does not include another 435 infected people who arrived from abroad. The tally for Jan. 31 is due to be released Monday. Two people have died in January, the first reported COVID deaths in China in several months. Most of the new cases have been in three northern provinces. Hardest-hit Hebei province, which borders Beijing, has reported more than 900 cases. Beijing, the Chinese capital, has itself had 45 cases this month. The numbers, while low compared to many other countries, have prompted officials to tighten restrictions and strongly discourage people from traveling during the Lunar New Year, a major holiday when people typically return home for family reunions. Train trips were down nearly 75 percent in the first three days of the holiday travel season, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday, citing the sta...

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control NCDC has announced that 1114 fresh cases of COVID19 were recorded in Nigeria on Friday, January 29.   According to the statistics released by the health agency, Lagos recorded 408 while the FCT recorded 95 fresh cases.   Other states with new cases include Plateau-90, Ondo-66, Kaduna-63, Oyo-56, Borno-46, Imo-42, Edo-41, Ogun-37, Rivers-31, Ekiti-25, Yobe-20, Kano-18, Akwa Ibom-18, Delta-15, Osun-15, Kwara-11, Bayelsa-6, Nasarawa-6, Zamfara-4 and Bauchi-1.   Nigeria now has 128, 674 confirmed cases of the disease. 102, 780 patients have been treated and discharged while 1, 577 patients have died.   See a breakdown of the number of cases per states below    

Willem Hanekom and Tulio de Oliveira, The Conversation Until shown to be otherwise, it is reasonable to expect vaccines to be effective against 501Y.V2 as has been shown in clinical trials to date. Late last year the  Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA)  led by the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform  (KRISP)  identified a rapidly spreading new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The new variant, called 501Y.V2, raises critical questions – including whether current vaccines and treatments will still be effective. With the support of the  South African Medical Research Council  and the  Department of Science and Innovation , a group of leading South African virologists, immunologists, vaccinologists, infectious disease specialists and microbiologists has since formed a consortium to address specific scientific questions surrounding 501Y.V2. The knowledge they generate will be sha...

The government is “deeply concerned” about vaccine nationalism, President Cyril Ramaphosa said during his address at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Dialogues on Tuesday. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images) The government is “deeply concerned” about vaccine nationalism, President  Cyril Ramaphosa  said during his address at the  World Economic Forum ’s Davos Dialogues on Tuesday. “The rich countries of the world went out and acquired large doses of vaccines from the manufacturers and developers of these vaccines. And some countries went even beyond and acquired up to four times what their populations need,” Ramaphosa said, during the discussion on South Africa’s economic recovery plan from  Covid-19 . “And that was aimed at hoarding the vaccines. This is being done to the exclusion of other countries in the world that most need this.” He spoke about the government’s efforts to help acquire vaccines for African countries. To date, the Covid-19 Afric...

Volunteers from Sonko Rescue Team, an NGO privately funded by Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko, fumigate a street to curb the spread of COVID-19 during a joint operation with Nairobi county during a 7pm-5am curfew at a residential area in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 6, 2020. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP) It could take more than a decade for the world’s poorest people to recover from the economic effects of the  Covid-19 pandemic, a new report finds. According to  Oxfam ’s  Inequality Virus Report , released on the opening day of the  World Economic Forum’s  Davos Dialogues, it took just nine months for the fortunes of the top 1 000 billionaires to return to their pre-pandemic highs. The world’s 10 richest billionaires — who are all men — saw their earnings skyrocket in 2020. For the world’s poor, the pandemic’s devastating ripple effect will be felt for many years to come. And, as a result, inequality risks being “supercharged”, the report finds. Oxfam’s su...

A lab technician wearing a full body protection suit inspects a bottle containing growth media for virus production during coronavirus vaccine research at the Valneva SA laboratories in Vienna, Austria. (Photo: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg via Getty Images) South Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccines are on course to touch down at OR Tambo on Monday, but they won’t carry the security measures that could best protect them from criminals.   The one million AstraZeneca shots, that have been produced by and procured via the Serum Institute of India, will be given to frontline healthcare workers, so the vials are set to be transported to some public health facilities where theft of medicines has been prevalent.  The Serum Institute, as well as the national health department, has confirmed to Bhekisisa that the vaccines won’t be barcoded at all.  A source at the largest producer of vaccines in the world said: “The government of India compels us as a manufacturer to use se...

There has been an introduction of anal swabs in China, as new type of coronavirus test that could detect the virus more accurately. This came as a result of the rise in COBID-19 virus in China, as the Chinese authorities struggle to contain infections ahead of the Lunar New Year celebrations, The anal tests were reserved for high risk cases according to reports from State-run channel CCTV, as some individuals who were tested through the new swab were surprise by the new method. Passengers arriving in China’s capital Beijing, of quarantine centers, residents, local officials, a group of more than 1,000 schoolchildren and teachers believed to be exposed to the virus. The new test  swab, involves inserting a cotton-tipped swab about 1-2 inches into the rectum, which will then be tested for the virus. The anal swab tests could be more accurate than nose or throat tests, according to the Li Tongzeng, deputy director of the respiratory and infectious diseases depart...

Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson, 52, is married for the 6th time, though she insists her last wedding was a 'mock' wedding and this is her 5th.   On Jan. 27, 2021, Anderson told The Daily Mail she'd married her bodyguard Dan Hayhurst on Christmas Eve in an intimate ceremony on the grounds of her Canadian home.   In an exclusive interview Anderson told DailyMailTV: "I'm exactly where I need to be - in the arms of a man who truly loves me."     The star has also shared her stunning wedding photos and video.   The Baywatch star has been married multiple times.   Anderson with her current husband    Her last wedding, the 5th, was in 2020. She married Hollywood mogul Jon Peters, 74, and it lasted for only 12 days.   She was previously married to Tommy Lee, with whom she shares sons Brandon, 23, and Dylan, 22.   The two were married from 1995 to 1998.   The actress later married and divorced Kid Rock in 2006.    ...

 Pledges Continuous Investment In Education To Complement LASG Lagos State First Lady, Dr Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu on Monday presented 10 HP Desktop Computers, 10 Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems and 10 Computer Tables to Senator Oluremi Tinubu Model Nursery and Primary School, Yaba, formerly known as Reagan Baptist Memorial Primary School, Onike, Yaba.   The donation of the items to the model primary school which is a public institution followed a request to that effect by the Chairman of Yaba Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Hon Kayode Omiyale since March last year (pre-covid).   The administration of Omiyale had embarked on remodeling of the school which was renamed after Senator Tinubu.   At the unveiling of the remodeled school last year, Omiyale had urged the First Lady, who attended the event, to support the council in equipping the school library earmarked for computer studies and books.   Speaking at the brief presentation ceremony held at Lago...

BBNaija star, Cynthia Nwadiora popularly known as CeeC, has taken to her Instagram page  to reveal that she contracted the novel Coronavirus this January.   She said the virus is definitely from hell. ''Covid-19 did a real number on me this January but I wasn’t raised to fold under pressure , I was taught to apply it!  On a more serious note, that virus is definitely from hell '' she wrote