TheNewsGuru

Tag: NCDC

  • Anonymous claims it has hacked official websites of Lagos, Kaduna, EFCC, INEC, NCDC, NNPC, others in support of #EndSARS

    Anonymous claims it has hacked official websites of Lagos, Kaduna, EFCC, INEC, NCDC, NNPC, others in support of #EndSARS

    The official websites of Lagos and Kaduna State Governments were early Saturday morning allegedly attacked by Anonymous.

    The hacker allegedly further shut down Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Amuwo Odofin Local Government in Lagos State.

    The hacker, who tweets from @LiteMods, claimed responsibilities for the said attacks on the websites in support of protests against police brutality in Nigeria.

    https://twitter.com/LiteMods/status/1317255037802942464?s=20

    The latest cyberattacks were a part of coordinated attacks by hacktivists on Nigerian government-owned websites and social media accounts.

    Hours earlier, the website of Nigeria’s central bank was hacked.

    https://twitter.com/LiteMods/status/1317267721986387974?s=20

    https://twitter.com/LiteMods/status/1317277361394585602?s=20

    https://twitter.com/LiteMods/status/1317261161725833219?s=20

    https://twitter.com/LiteMods/status/1317253586959650817?s=20

     

    “Nigerian government, we will not allow this corruption,” the hacker tweeted late on Friday. “We will not allow this police brutality. Your websites of @officialEFCC have been taken-down so far by my attacks and more will be next.”

    Protests broke out in Nigeria last week against police brutality, with thousands of young people calling for the scrapping of a Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a police unit that has been accused of committing crimes including murder.

    The protests have drawn thousands of mainly young demonstrators onto the streets and online in the most concerted show of people power in Nigeria in years.

    Crowd-sourced donations have poured in for the largely leaderless #EndSARS movement, supporters said.

    One group, the Feminist Coalition, said it had received contributions worth more than $175,000 (150,000 euros).

    The collective said it had paid legal fees and medical bills for injured protesters, donated to families of victims, and bought food, water and face masks for people at demonstrations.

  • COVID-19: NCDC announces 151 new infections in Nigeria

    COVID-19: NCDC announces 151 new infections in Nigeria

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has announced 151 new Coronavirus (COVID-19), infections in the country.

    The NCDC made this known on its official twitter handle on Friday.

    The centre said that the 151 new cases brought the nation’s confirmed COVID-19 infection to 59,992.

    It stated that the cases were reported in nine states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, but no death was recorded.

    Consequently, the number of COVID-19 fatalities stood at 1,113.

    The NCDC said that Lagos state recorded the highest daily infection with 71 new cases followed by Ogun and Kaduna with 26 and 17 respectively.

    Other states were Osun (10), Oyo (8), FCT (6), Rivers (6), Plateau (5), Akwa Ibom (1), and Ekiti (1).

    The public health agency said till date, 59,992 cases have been confirmed, 51,614 cases have been discharged and 1,113 deaths have been recorded in the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory.

    The centre said that a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, has continued to coordinate the national response activities across the country.

    Meanwhile, the NCDC said that “Wearing a mask is the first step to protecting yourself and others from COVID-19 under the new normal.

    “A face mask must be worn when you are in public or when you are around people who don’t live with you,” it advised.

  • COVID-19: Nigeria cases now 58,198 with 49,722 discharged

    COVID-19: Nigeria cases now 58,198 with 49,722 discharged

    Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases has reached 58,198 with 49,722 patients discharged from various isolation centres across the federation, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) revealed.

    In its official twitter website, the health agency also announced 136 new cases of the infections with three deaths in the country for Saturday.

    The agency said that the new infection were reported from 13 states with 116 patients discharged.

    Lagos state recorded the highest number of cases with 41 new infections, while Ogun, Rivers Abia, and Oyo recorded 27, 19, 10 and 6 cases respectively.

    Other states with new infections were Plateau-6, Bauchi-5, Ondo-5, Ekiti-4, Kaduna-4, Edo-3, Ebonyi-2, Bayelsa-1, Delta-1, Osun-1 and Yobe-1.

    The NCDC said that the fatality figure of the country stood at 1,106 from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

    The NCDC had conducted about 502,545 tests since the first confirmed case was announced in the country:

    The health agency said that a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, have continued to coordinate the national response activities across the country.

    Meanwhile, the NCDC has called for institutions in the country to take responsibility in ensuring that individuals adhere to COVID-19 preventive measures.

    “To wear a mask might be uncomfortable but better a mask than a ventilator. It is important to wear your face mask when you go out. Wear a mask properly; covering your nose and mouth, gaps secured with straps and stay safe for everyone.

  • COVID-19: Not yet celebration time, Nigeria not testing adequately – NCDC

    COVID-19: Not yet celebration time, Nigeria not testing adequately – NCDC

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has warned that though the country has recorded a decline in the number of COVID-19 cases, it was not yet celebration time as Nigeria has not tested adequately and therefore risks a resurgence.

    Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director General, NCDC, said this at a briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday in Abuja.

    Ihekweazu said that the country recorded a 36 per cent decline nationally in August, compared to July, while the positivity ratio dropped from 20 per cent in June to 7 per cent in July.

    “You might think that that is good news and we should be celebrating; unfortunately, we cannot celebrate this until we test sufficient numbers in every state in the country.

    “One critical issue is the number of tests being done and yes the number of tests have actually declined, but another important indicator that we look at is the test positivity ratio nationally,’’ he said.

    According to him, the only states that can confidently celebrate a decline in cases are Lagos and Kano, as well as the FCT, because they have tested high numbers, but the same cannot be said at the National level because some states are not testing.

    He decried that the NCDC could not make any interpretation on the data in Taraba Adamawa, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Kebbi, Zamfara, Jigawa and Yobe States.

    “We do not have enough data coming out of these states to ascertain if we are improving or not or where exactly we are.

    “So we have to work together, in summary; it is way too early to make any interpretation whether we are flattening the curve or not, some interpretation can be made in Lagos, FCT, because they are testing enough, but we can’t do this on a national level.’’

    The NCDC boss noted that countries that seem to have seen a decline were seeing a resurgence of cases.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NCDC and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) have launched COVID-19 household Sero-prevalence surveys in selected states in Nigeria, to better understand the burden of the virus in the country.

    The surveillance will be carried out in Gombe, Enugu, Nasarawa and Lagos States.

  • ASUU again warns against reopening of schools, states why

    ASUU again warns against reopening of schools, states why

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan Chapter, has warned against the reopening of schools without provisions for schools to meet COVID-19 precautionary guidelines.

    Its chairman, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, stated this in a release he made available to newsmen in Ibadan on Sunday.

    Akinwole stated that the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools could be enormous if responsibility was not taken to ensure safety.

    He warned that no pecuniary gains would be more than the lives of lecturers and their students.

    Akinwole noted that before COVID-19 pandemic, public varsities were overcrowded with students and hostel facilities took more than its capacity.

    He then warned parents not to jubilate at the news of a possible reopening of schools.

    However, they should ask the government to put measures in place so as not to have a surge in COVID-19 that might happen as a result of ill-thought out reopening, he said.

    “What we are simply saying is that the Federal Government should adhere to their own set guidelines.

    “Our position, as a responsible union in all these is that; throwing schools open in the midst of all these, is an open invitation to the tragic explosion of the COVID-19 scourge on a scale never witnessed anywhere since its outbreak.”

    He said that the union was aware that there had been agitations from some quarters for the government to reopen schools.

    He said that those leading the campaign are the proprietors of private universities.

    He said, “ASUU is not in any way opposed to this call.

    “However, Nigerians should honestly interrogate this position. Has the Nigerian government met the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) criteria on COVID – 19 protocols in our institutions?

    “COVID-19 pandemic is still very much with us. It is in recognition of this fact that the government itself has rolled out certain conditions to be met before schools are reopened.”

    According to the ASUU chairman, How many of our public institutions can confidently vouch for the safety of our children given the available facilities such as: provision of running water for hand washing; social distancing among students.

    He listed others to include: the use of recommended face masks and shields, which are key components of NCDC protocols.

  • JUST IN: ICPC quizzes top NDDC officials over alleged diversion of N5.4bn COVID-19 funds, others

    JUST IN: ICPC quizzes top NDDC officials over alleged diversion of N5.4bn COVID-19 funds, others

    The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says it recently quizzed top officials of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) over various allegations of corruption.

    Mrs Azuka Ogugua, Spokesperson of the Commission, said this in a statement on Saturday in Abuja.

    Ogugua said the allegations included diversion of funds, procurement fraud and misappropriation of the agency’s COVID-19 funds.

    The ICPC spokesperson said some directors of the NDDC, who she did not identify, were arrested and quizzed at the ICPC headquarters recently.

    According to her, this came after months of intelligence gathering, following the receipt of petitions from Nigerians on the alleged illegalities and contracts fraud by some officials of the agency.

    “Top officials of the agency are being investigated for their complicity in an alleged diversion of N5.474 billion meant for the purchase of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health workers handling the COVID-19 pandemic in the nine states of NDDC.

    “The commission is also investigating the payments of millions of Naira to staff of the agency for foreign training during the COVID-19 full lockdown which were never attended.

    “As well as the non payment of entitlements to students on foreign scholarships.

    “Other allegations being investigated by ICPC include the selling of backdated contract award letters for projects and awards of contracts that were not captured in the budget of the NDDC,’’ she said.

    She added that ICPC had already retrieved relevant documents with which to continue investigations towards the recovery of diverted funds and prosecution of breaches of the law.

    It would be recalled that NDDC has dominated headlines in recent times following a corruption probe launched by the National Assembly.

    During one of the hearings, the Acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei, admitted that the commission spent N1.5 billion as COVID-19 palliatives first on its staff.

    The Senate later disclosed in a report that top management of the commission paid themselves N85.6 million to attend a graduation ceremony in the United Kingdom during the lockdown in Nigeria.

    The legislative investigation became controversial when the commission’s management accused some senators and members of the House of Representatives of benefiting from several NDDC contracts.

  • BREAKING: Lagos records 404 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours

    BREAKING: Lagos records 404 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours

    Lagos State has recorded a spike in COVID-19 cases with 404 in the last 24 hours, increasing the state’s infection figures to 17,764.

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) made the disclosure on Sunday in its COVID-19 Situation Report for Aug. 22.

    According to NCDC, Lagos has 404 new cases out of the 601 confirmed cases reported in the last 24 hours from 21 states.

    The health agency also disclosed that 684 patients who were treated and had fully recovered, were discharged, making the number of COVID-19 patients discharged in the state at 15,209.

    It, however, announced one COVID-19 related death in the state, increasing the state’s COVID-19 mortality to 202.

    Lagos remains the epicentre of COVID-19 cases with 17,764 of the total 51,905 cases in the country.

    Also, data by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Africa Region, shows that there are 1,167,848 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the continent

    WHO said that there over 888,000 recoveries and 27,322 deaths.

  • We test 6,000 COVID-19 samples daily – NCDC

    We test 6,000 COVID-19 samples daily – NCDC

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Tuesday disclosed that the country currently carries out between 3,000 and 6,000 daily COVID-19 tests.

    It said although the testing infrastructure available can conveniently carry out 15,000 daily COVID-19 tests, the country is yet to fully utilise this capacity, as only 40 percent of it is being deployed.

    The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, made this known in Abuja, during a television interview.

    He said, “We have a national capacity to test somewhere close to 15,000 tests per day. We’re however doing between 3,000 and 5,000 and maybe 6,000 at most. So, that is what we are doing and we are testing about 40 percent of what we have the capacity to test for.

    “This is not just about the laboratories. This is really about the sample collection; encouraging people not to be fatigued, not to worry – to have confidence in the system, and to come up when they are sick, and to provide samples to be tested.

    “Second challenge is the logistics to get those tests collected into the lab. We have been working over the last week with States to improve the efficiency of this.

    “How we have gotten to 64 laboratories is that we have gone across the country and wherever we see some minimum capacity, we have worked with them to quickly upgrade what they have in order to get them to the level of testing – whether it’s in a university, in a state hospital, in a federal teaching hospital.”

    Concerning faster ways of testing for COVID-19, like the saliva testing, the NCDC boss said, “Development of new diagnostics has been a little bit slow. Yes, there have been a lot of discussions about a 15-minute test or your bedside test.

    “All of these characteristics are great but until we have a test that actually works, it doesn’t matter whether it’s 15 minutes or whether it is easy to use. The first question is – does it work? Does it work well enough, such that when a doctor says you are positive or negative that is exactly what it is. These are two characteristics of each test that we call the sensitivity and specificity of a test.

    “Looking at developments around the world, we are ourselves evaluating, with the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, new antibody and antigen tests. All the ones we have evaluated, none of them so far has been good enough to be used for diagnostic purposes.

    “We are going to use one of the antibody tests for a sero-survey that we are about to implement to determine how many people in Nigeria have been infected in specific populations. They are good enough to be used in surveys but they are not good enough yet to be used for diagnostic purposes.

    “Having said that, this is really a rapidly evolving field. The easier testing becomes, the much more powerful will be our ability to control this outbreak. As soon as we get something useful in the market, we will grab it with both hands.”

  • Lagos COVID-19 recoveries exceed 13,000- NCDC

    Lagos COVID-19 recoveries exceed 13,000- NCDC

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has included the number of recovered patients from the Lagos State home-based treatment of COVID-19 in its data, increasing the state’s COVID-19 pandemic recoveries to 13,106.

    NCDC made this known on Tuesday in its COVID-19 Situation Report for Aug. 3.

    It said that the recovery figure recorded for Lagos includes patients who were successfully treated and discharged from the state’s treatment centres, and those managed at their homes in various communities by the state.

    According to NCDC, Abuja has overtaken Lagos with the highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the country.

    The data by NCDC shows that Abuja has
    2,767 active cases, while Lagos and Oyo States have 2,057 and 1,347 cases respectively.

    The health agency added that Lagos accounted for 88 new COVID-19 infections out of the 288 cases reported from 15 states on Aug. 3.

    “That brings the state’s total number of infections to 15,355,” NCDC said.

    Also, data by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Africa Region, shows that there were 957,905 confirmed COVID-19 cases on the continent, with over 610,000 recoveries and 20,304 deaths.

  • COVID-19 vaccine may be available in 6 months — NCDC

    COVID-19 vaccine may be available in 6 months — NCDC

    The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu, says there are a lot of ongoing programmes on the COVID-19 vaccine research and that a vaccine may be available within the next six to 12 months.

    Speaking on Thursday during the virtual weekly briefing of the African Centre for Disease Control, he said the country recorded between 500 and 700 confirmed cases of COVID-19 every day.

    Why coronavirus test results are delayed – NCDC COVID-19: Nineteen potential vaccines under clinical trial — WHO He said the country had not experienced an explosion of cases as predicted by some models during the initial days of the outbreak.

    Dr Ihekweazu said Lagos accounts for about 30 per cent of the cases in Nigeria because of its large population and influx of international travellers into the country at the onset of the outbreak, among others.

    The NCDC boss said Nigeria had so far tested 250, 000 persons for COVID-19, adding that the figure was however not large enough for the country’s population.

    He said the country now has 60 molecular testing centres across the country.

    “We initially didn’t have enough molecular testing centres. But now we have 60 molecular testing centres. 85 percent of the 36 states of the country now have testing centres and we intend to cover the remaining six states by next week,” he said.

    He said NCDC would continue to improve the sensitivity of the country’s surveillance system, adding that it would also increase focus on Infection, Prevention, and Control (IPC).

    While enjoining the populace to stick to health guidelines against COVID-19, he said prevention was key in Nigeria’s response to the disease.

    According to him, Nigeria’s response also relies on science and not some unscientific claims screamed over microphones. Also speaking, the Director, Africa CDC, Dr. John Nkengasong, enjoined all African countries to establish centres for disease control, saying COVID-19 had shown that every African state needed one.

    He said as of today, 55 Member States in Africa have reported 891,199 cases of COVID-19 and 18,884 deaths, giving a case fatality rate of 2.1%. He said, “There have been 540,872 recoveries.

    In the past week, there was a 15 percent increase in cases, with 118,868 new cases reported, an average of 16,981 new cases reported per day. The average daily new cases for the previous week were 17,587.” Related