By Uche Mbah
The World Health Organisation, WHO, has announced her intention to suspend Hydroxychloroquine trial as a potential drug for the cure of the rampaging Coronavirus.
WHO has been doing “solidarity trial” of the drug in six continents.,
WHO President Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference Monday that treating the disease with Chloroquine may result in increased death ratio, therefore it has to be suspended.
“The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the safety data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board,” Tedros said.
The US President last week announced that he is taking the drug, which prompted countries to scramble for the drug. Indications were that Nigerian health authorities may also have been experimenting on the drug. Many Nigerians had ventured into self medications, with reports of deaths resulting in Chloroquine overdose rampant. Chloroquine is a Malaria treatment drug as distinct from Hydroxychloroquine, used for the treatment of Arthritis.
He said that Africa’s low figures do not “paint the real picture”.
“Africa has just 1.5 percent of the world’s reported cases of COVID-19, and less than 0.1 percent of the world’s deaths”, he said.
“Of course, these numbers don’t paint the full picture.
“So far, although around half of the countries in the region have community transmission, concentrated mainly in major cities, Africa is the least affected region globally in terms of the number of cases and deaths reported to WHO.
“Testing capacity in Africa is still being ramped up and there is a likelihood that some cases may be missed.
“But even so, Africa appears to have so far been spared the scale of outbreaks we have seen in other regions.
“The early set-up of a leaders coalition led by the African Union, under the chairmanship of President Ramaphosa of South Africa were key to rapidly accelerate preparedness efforts and issuing comprehensive control measures.
“Countries across Africa have garnered a great deal of experience from tackling infectious diseases like polio, measles, Ebola, yellow fever, influenza, and many more.
“Africa’s knowledge and experience of suppressing infectious diseases has been critical to rapidly scaling up an agile response to COVID-19.
“There have been solidarity across the continent. Labs in Senegal and South Africa were some of the first in the world to implement COVID-19 diagnostic testing.
“And beyond that they worked together with Africa CDC and WHO to extend training for laboratory technicians for detection of COVID-19 and to build up the national capacity across the region.
“Furthermore, health clinicians, scientists, researchers, and academics from across Africa are collectively contributing to the worldwide understanding of COVID-19 disease.
“For many years and from the outset of this pandemic, WHO has been working through our country offices to support nations in health emergency preparedness and developing comprehensive national action plans to prevent, detect and respond to the virus.
“With WHO support, many African countries have made good progress in preparedness.
“All countries in Africa now have a preparedness and response plan in place, compared with less than a dozen in the first few weeks of the pandemic.
“48 countries in the region have a community engagement plan in place, compared with only 25 countries 10 weeks ago.
“And 51 have the lab-testing capacity for COVID-19, compared with 40 countries 10 weeks ago.
“WHO continues to support Africa with other life-saving supplies.
“As of last week, we have shipping millions of personal protective equipment and lab tests to 52 African countries.
“In the coming weeks we plan further shipments of PPE, oxygen concentrators, and lab tests.
“However, we still see gaps and vulnerabilities. Only 19% of countries in the region have an infection prevention and control program and standards for water, sanitation, and hygiene in health facilities.
“And disruption to essential health services, such as vaccination campaigns and care for malaria, HIV and other diseases pose a huge risk.
Meanwhile, President Trump of A America has written to the world body asking them to explain their role in aiding the Pandemic nature of the disease within one month. Failure to do that will result in permanently withdrawing their subvention and leaving the organization
