Covid-19: Kwara State Gov. Arrest & Return Patients Who Escaped Through The Fence

Rafiu Ajakaye, Chief Press Secretary to the

US Doctor Who Treated COVID-19 Patients Commits Suicide

A top emergency room doctor at a major Manhattan hospital that treated coronavirus patients died by suicide on Sunday, according to her father.

Dr. Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died in Charlottesville, Va., where she was staying with family, her father said in an interview.

Her father, Dr. Philip C. Breen, said she had described devastating scenes of the toll the coronavirus took on patients.

“She tried to do her job, and it killed her,” he said.

The elder Dr. Breen said his daughter had contracted the coronavirus but had gone back to work after recuperating for about a week and a half. The hospital sent her home again, before her family intervened to bring her to Charlottesville, he said.

Dr. Breen, 49, did not have a history of mental illness, her father said. But he said that when he last spoke with her, she seemed detached, and he could tell something was wrong. She had described to him an onslaught of patients who were dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances.

“She was truly in the trenches of the front line,” he said.

He added: “Make sure she’s praised as a hero, because she was. She’s a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died.”

South Africa Receives Cuban Medics To Help Treat COVID-19 Patients

South Africa on Sunday received a medical team from Cuba to help health officials treat COVID-19 patients.

The 217 health care professionals include doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and technical experts.

“It’s really something great, the feeling for what is being done to help other countries with fewer resources deal with this pandemic is hard to describe, to leave your family and everything else to confront this for those who don’t have the means”, Teresa de la Cruz, a nurse said.

It's really something great, the feeling for what is being done to help other countries...

The largest contingent has been deployed to Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Cuban officials say the large team sent to South Africa will bring much needed support and expertise to a health system struggling to contain and treat an increasing number of COVID-19 patients.

Cuba is dealing with its own virus outbreak. But according to officials, measures to contain COVID-19 are showing signs of success, even as the number of cases continues to grow.

Cuba has deployed a total of 1,200 medical professionals in 23 nations since the global pandemic.

Over 4,300 COVID-19 cases have been registered in South Africa with 86 fatalities.

Source: AP

"Permit Us To Pray & Heal Covid-19 Patients” – Apostle Suleman Tells FG

Johnson Suleman, founder of Omega Fire Ministry, has called on the federal government to allow pastors heal COVID-19 patients in the country through prayers.

This is despite the fact that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had warned people against unscientific claims suggesting cure for the respiratory disease caused by coronavirus.

But according to Church Times, the clergyman said there was need for the government to grant permission to those with divine healing gifts to visit isolation centres and cure people with the killer virus.

Suleman claimed such measure is needed if the country hopes to make meaningful progress in the fight against the novel disease.

“Please (referring to the government) permit us to go and pray for COVID-19 patients. Allow us to go there (isolation centres), that is why there are men of God,” he said.

“If you are really anointed to pray for the sick, this is the time because what is holding the world is sickness. So, we’re begging the government to permit us into isolation centres, that is the only way we can reduce this nonsense because it will improve everyday.

“There are people with the gift of healing, God has gifted them to pray for the sick. It is not fake, gimmick or arranged. It is there in them. Permit us so that we can prove there are prophets in Nigeria.”

He added that such permission from the government would also reduce the backlash many pastors have been getting on the social media about their perceived inability to do anything about the pandemic.

“Permit us so that the ridicule and all that can reduce. We’re not telling you we can heal all of them but by the time we are through with them, you’ll see significant difference. If they are 20 before, at least 18 will be cleared because that is what God can do,” he said.

Suleman further stretches the list of religious leaders who believe the killer virus could be handled through divine intervention.

So far, there are 1,273 confirmed cases of the virus in Nigeria with 239 discharged and 40 deaths recorded.

Israeli Firm Hopeful as it Starts Treating COVID-19 Patients with Placenta Cells

The bioreactor where Pluristem produces cells for its treatment (David Garb)

‘I think this will have a huge impact,’ CEO of Pluristem says, but public health expert cautions: ‘I don’t have any feeling this is going to work’

Israeli scientists who claim a single placenta can treat 20,000 coronavirus sufferers are hopeful after beginning the treatment, as some of its first patients have shown improvement while their company’s shares have skyrocketed.

Pluristem Therapeutics uses placentas to grow smart cells, and programs them to secrete therapeutic proteins in the bodies of sick people. It has just treated its first American COVID-19 patient after treating seven Israelis.

There is no follow-up data on the American patient, but the company reported that as of a follow-up on April 7, all seven Israelis had survived and three were on target to soon move off ventilators, while one had shown deterioration in respiratory parameters

Two of the four Israelis with multiple organ failure showed clinical recovery as well as respiratory improvement. All patients were one week after treatment at time of follow-up, apart from one, who received treatment after the others and whose health update wasn’t reported.

The treatment of select patients doesn’t constitute a clinical trial and there is no control group, but company CEO and president Yaky Yanay said Thursday that a trial will come soon and, once conducted, he hopes that “approval can be very fast.” Upon receiving the green light from regulators, he said, massive quantities of treatment can be prepared. “We can manufacture cells to treat thousands very quickly,” he said.

The market appears to share his optimism. For most of 2020 shares have traded at under $4; now the price is close to $10.

But public health expert Manfred Green said he is “very very cautious” about such innovations. Green, founding director of the Israel Center for Disease Control and director of the University of Haifa’s international masters program in public health, said: “I don’t have any feeling this is going to work. This is a viral disease, not something from outer space, and for viral diseases we’ve always struggled to find treatment.”

Yanay said that his innovation will save lives, both by improving the health of critical patients, and by freeing up space in intensive care units for others.

I think this will have a huge impact because currently the battle is in the ICUs,” he said. “We need to take people off ventilation machines and get them out of ICUs.”

The treatment is waiting on regulatory approval, but Pluristem is receiving approvals on a patient-by-patient basis in Israel and the US, hoping to gather enough information for full approval. In Israel it has worked so far at three hospitals under a compassionate use program, and at Holy Name Medical Center in New Jersey it was allowed to administer cells under the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, an emergency mechanism for possible therapies.

Treatment consists of 15-milliliter doses of cells — known as PLacental eXpanded cells — administered in simple inter-muscular injections. Once in the body, Yanay said that the cells become like “a small factory that generates therapeutic proteins.”

He explained: “Most drugs we know are administered in the quantity we need, but this is a ‘drug’ that can sense the human body’s environment, and based on the signals that the cells receive from the body, they secrete therapeutic proteins that push the body toward regeneration.”

The cells secrete two types of proteins. One reduces inflammation; the other is to regulate the immune system. Yanay hopes these so-called immunomodulation proteins can slam the brakes on the immune system to stop it turning on itself, as commonly happens with critical coronavirus patients.

                      Yaky Yanay (David Garb)

“They stop the body from attacking its own organs by having the placenta cells secrete immunomodulatory factors, basically relaxing the immune system, as the other proteins reduce inflammation,” said Yanay.

He elaborated: “Patients who are in severe condition and dying are actually dying from a severe respiratory condition. What is actually happening is there is a very high level of inflammation and at a certain point the immune system of the patient will attack [the patient], mostly in the lungs.”

Until now, Pluristem’s technology has been largely used to treat people suffering from poor blood flow to the legs, but the company’s scientists were able to quickly repurpose the cells to treat coronavirus patients.

“We take cells from the placenta after full-term delivery and we have developed technology to expand the cells to very large numbers, in an environment that mimics the human body,” Yanay said. “The technology allows us to treat more than 20,000 people from a single placenta.”

His team “programs” the cells, which then have a wide range of proteins they can secrete. The cells don’t just deliver the proteins but also “adjust the level of secretion based on signals they receive from the body,” he said.

Yanay stated that Pluristem, which is based in Haifa, will carry on treating people using patient-by-patient approvals, while working as quickly as possible for full approval by regulators.

“We are receiving many inquiries and requests for treatment from health care providers and families worldwide,” he said. “In parallel with our planned clinical trial, we expect to continue treating patients under compassionate use through the appropriate regulatory clearances in the United States and Israel, as well as expanding treatment under compassionate use in other countries.

“Our main focus remains, however, the initiation of a multinational clinical study,” he said, adding that he was hopeful “cell therapy is a very good candidate to tackle a complex disease that is attacking several organs.”

Times of Israel News