Good news on Coronavirus from the UK

1 day ago

Sir: This is what a friend, Dr Issa Ọlarongbe Sanusi, forwarded to me on coronavirus, which he got as a forwarded message: “This is what a senior British doctor had to say in a medical forum that was held recently: ‘‘For this pandemic there’s a greater chance of survival for those getting infected three months later like June 2020 than those who got infected three months earlier say February 2020. The reason for this is that doctors and scientists know more about COVID-19 now than three months ago and hence are able to treat patients better. I will list five important things that we know now that we didn’t know in February 2020.” I abbreviate the points:

1. Now we know that just providing oxygen by ventilators will not help but we have to prevent and dissolve the micro clots in the lungs. This is why we are using drugs like Asprin and Heparin (blood thinners that prevents clotting) as protocol in treatment regimens in June 2020.

2. Now since knowing about happy hypoxia we are monitoring oxygen saturation of all COVID-19 patients with a simple home use pulse oxymeter and getting them to hospital if their oxygen saturation drops to 93% or less. This gives more time for doctors to correct the oxygen deficiency in the blood and a better survival chance in (as from – emphasis mine) June 2020. 

3. We did not have drugs to fight the coronavirus in February 2020. We were only treating the complications caused by it… hypoxia. Hence most patients became severely infected. Now we have two important medicines: FAVIPIRAVIR and REMDESIVIR, which are ANTIVIRALS that can kill the coronavirus. By using these two medicines we can prevent patients from becoming severely infected and therefore cure them before they go to hypoxia.

4. Now in June 2020, we know that easily available medicines called Steroids, that doctors around the world have been using for almost 80 years can be used to prevent the cytokine storm in some patients.
Prof. Ọlọjẹẹde Oyeniran Abiọjẹ wrote from University of Ilorin.

5. Now we also know that people with hypoxia became better just by making them lie down on their belly- known as prone position. Apart from this a few days ago scientists have discovered that a chemical known as Alpha Defensin produced by the patients White blood cells can cause the micro clots in blood vessels of the lungs and this could possibly be prevented by a drug called Colchicine used over many decades in the treatment of Gout.

So patients have a better chance at surviving the COVID-19 infection now in June 2020 than in February 2020 for sure. Going forward there’s nothing to panic about COVID-19. Let’s continue to follow precautions, but let us not be unreasonably paranoid.

The question arises: Are the World Health Organisation and Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) saying we should not be “unreasonably paranoid” about coronavirus? No, NCDC is rolling out huge numbers of persons infected with coronavirus that we have no means of verifying, thereby paving the way for the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari to threaten Nigerians with endless lockdown and grounding of normal life. Some primary and secondary students can resume schooling but not university students (young adults) whose first semester exams were stopped midway.

The UK and some other nations acknowledge some medicines, while Nigeria rulers deny existence of medicine for coronavirus. Sadism is the worst enemy of humanity. Politicisation of Islam and Christianity hangs on Nigeria like the Sword of Damocles.

Prof. Ọlọjẹẹde Oyeniran Abiọjẹ wrote from University of Ilorin.