The long lasting relationship between Nigeria and the United States has remained beneficial to the Nigerian Armed Forces on health and allied matters thus, translating towards achieving some remarkable records in prevention, care and treatment of HIV, Ebola, Lassa Fever and recently the containment of Covid-19 pandemic.

The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Defence, Babangida Hussaini, made the remarks while receiving the donations of health care items including Personal Protective Equipment from the United States Department of Defence to the Nigerian Armed Forces.

Babangida Hussaini who received the items on behalf of the Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen Bashir Salihi Magashi (rtd), noted that the collaboration has grown to include researches and several interventions that provides source of livelihoods through job creation for health care workers and professionals allied to healthcare delivery.

Specifically, the Permanent Secretary pointed out that “the Defence Referral Laboratory which was recently re-accredited with state-of–the-art diagnostic equipment was established with the support of the US government and these has greatly enhanced the capacity of our personnel leading to ground breaking research studies” he posits.

Babangida explained that outcomes of the researches have been utilized to upscale the prevention and management of infectious diseases especially at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his words, “There is no gainsaying the fact that this donation would further enhance the ability of our front line medical staff in the fight to curtail the Covid-19 and to ensure that staff go about their duties with minimal risk of being exposed to harmful infectious agents.”

The Permanent Secretary assured the Donors that the items would be appropriately deployed to relevant military facilities without delay or hindrance.

In her remarks while presenting the equipment, the United States charge de Affair, Nigeria, Kathleen Fitzgibbon, said the relationship between the United States and Nigeria has remained community oriented adding that the US would continue to support the Government and people of Nigeria for a better world.

The Director General, Defence Health Implementation Programme, Brig. Gen. Nathan Anelechi Okeji, while welcoming the guests to the ceremony, commended the visionary leadership of the Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir Salihi Magashi and the US Ambassador to Nigeria for actualizing their understanding.

Highlight of the event, is the facility tour of the Nigerian Air force Hospital’s emergency Covid 19 Treatment Centre undertaken by the Permanent Secretary and other Guests.

• Defence Minister, Maj.-Gen Magashi (rtd)

Over 50m confirmed COVID-19 cases reported worldwide — WHO

World Health Organisation (WHO) figures on Monday showed that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 50 million.

A WHO dashboard showed that globally, as of 10:45 am CET (0945 GMT) on Monday, a total of 50,030,121 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,252,072 deaths, had been reported to the UN health agency.

The pace of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to pick up. It took just 20 days for the WHO tally to go from 40 million global cases reported on Oct. 20 to 50 million.

Monday’s figures showed that the U.S. remains at the top in both confirmed cases and deaths, reporting 9,763,730 COVID-19 cases and 235,562 deaths.

The next in line is India and Brazil which have reported 8,553,657 and 5,653,561 confirmed cases respectively, including 126,611 and 162,269 deaths from each country.

Following the top three in confirmed cases are Russia with 1,774,334 cases, France with 1,714,361 cases, Spain with 1,328,832 cases, Argentina with 1,236,851 cases, Britain with 1,171,445 cases, Colombia with 1,136,447 cases, and Mexico with 961,938 cases.

On the list of death tolls, following the top three are Mexico with 94,808 cases, Britain with 48,888 cases, Italy with 41,063 cases, France with 39,849 cases, Spain with 38,833 cases, Iran with 38,291 cases, and Peru with 34,840 cases.

According to WHO regional offices, America remains the most affected area by COVID-19, with a total of 21,730,622 confirmed cases and 659,080 death cases, followed by Europe where 13,135,548 confirmed cases and 311,336 death cases have been reported.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, countries including Germany, France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are racing to find a vaccine.

According to the website of the WHO, as of Nov. 3, there were 202 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 47 of them were in clinical trials. (Xinhua/NAN)