By Chris Otaigbe
As the world battles to wrest its sanity from the rampaging and ravaging covid-19 pandemic and while America grapples with Donald Trump’s mercantilist desperation for re-election, medical practitioner, Stella Immanuel along with her co-doctors shocked the world with her passionate defence of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
Stella’s scattered few minutes of fame, through the enablement of Trump’s White House has further amplified the contentious malaria drug as a potent cure for the coronavirus.
The video was part of a news conference held in America. The event was hosted by the Tea Party Patriots. The organization, America’s Frontline Doctors, a group founded by Dr. Simone Gold, a board-certified physician and attorney, and made up of medical doctors, came together to address what the group calls a “massive disinformation campaign” about the coronavirus. Dr. Immanuel was among the doctors who spoke. She strongly attested to treating over 350 Patients in her clinic in Houston, Texas, with the combination of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), Zinc and Zithromax.
Having been in use for over six decades now as an anti-malaria cure, hydroxychloroquine, calls to question the need for deep-thinkers to interrogate the veracity of this claim against medical facts and practical truth of its relevance in this dreaded time of our embattled humanity, in a stormy Covid-19 era.
The Cameroonian-born Immanuel claimed she has tested and cured over 350 patients and counting with the drug. Some pro-hydroxyl chloroquine medical findings have stated that the drug works better and safer for hospitalized patients. Even those against have not totally discounted the integrity of this claim. They have only noted that the success rate cannot be considered strong enough as curatively effective against the virus.
Its removal from the list of globally acceptable cure against Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) can be interpreted as a good measure to discourage dependency on the drug as a cure, while, of course, the search for the almighty vaccine continues.
On the other hand, it could be misinterpreted or interpreted, as the case may be, as a politically motivated move against Trump and a design to create huge business leverage for multinational Pharmaceutical interests.
Back home in Nigeria, the question on the lips of many revolve around the thousands of cases that have been and are being discharged from Covid-19 Isolation centers: What kind of treatment and drugs are applied, exactly, on those discharged patients that made them cleansed of the corona virus? The answer came in a big way with the Chairman of DAAR Communications, Aleogho Dokpesi, whose Covid-19 positive status made much noise and headlines across the nation.
Although, he may have been prevailed upon to keep his mouth shut, his viral video in which he narrated his experience under Covid-19 isolation tells the world that he was ‘cured of corona virus’ with anti-malaria drugs. He then asked the question, “Is Covid-19 related to malaria disease?”
Deriving from that, one could say, with regards to the Nigerian experience of the pandemic, that it may not be impossible that, at least for now, the Nigerian Covid-19 administrators have been succeeding in curing patients (albeit tentatively), with anti-malaria drugs pending when the vaccine will finally show up.
Since the Presidential Task Force (PTF) and any other player on the Covid-19 turf in the country has not come out to assertively dispute the claim or tell Nigerians, the ‘magic’ or ‘miracle’ they perform on previously positive patients that makes them patently delivered from the virus, reaching a pro-anti-malaria drug cure conclusion becomes inevitable.
Away from the polemics around the drug to the politics of its growing and head-spinning controversy. Everyone knows the pandemic has Trump to thank for making the United States (US) of America its world epicenter today. Trump’s rating-crazy and nervous sidestepping of the existence of the virus in the US. His annoying ignorance and immature intransigence prevented him from acting on time and in appropriate measure, which have brought incalculable damage to America under his watch.
Desperate to tell Americans some good news about a cure, he didn’t wait for empirical medical data and certification to endorse the anti-malaria drug before he placed the presidential might of the world’s greatest power behind hydroxychloroquine.
When the backlash began to hurt him, he backed off for a while, hoping the pro-hydroxyl medical community would rally behind him, independently.
The Stella Immanuel Supreme Court show presented just the opportunity he had been hoping for and without thinking, retweeted the viral video to his over 84 million Twitter followers.
Now, America is querying its President why he considers a black voodoo doctor who believes women can be impregnated by Alien sperm, as one to be believed over his medical Advisers. Typical of Trump, when the storm rushes at him, destabilizing him, he makes a retreat only to double down once he sees a bit of calm, as the world has witnessed with his latest romance with and endorsement of Immanuel’s hydroxy showmanship and cameo performance.
From her accent and animated performance, Immanuel could be almost be mistaken for a Nigerian, perhaps from the Eastern part. But then, even as a Cameroonian, her medical study in Calabar gives her that Nigerians-type of attitude.
Some of her course-mates who know her have all been bashing her and exposing her character, which many alleged was not too pleasant. In a particular video, that is also going viral, a Nigerian woman who claimed she knows Immanuel was particularly glad to see the Cameroonian once again after a long time.
According to her, Immanuel sold a Wi-Fi device to her and other Nigerians. The venture cost the Nigerian lady less than one hundred thousand shy of a million naira. She submitted that “Stella disappeared into thin air when we told her what she sold to us is not working. We believed her because she came through the Church. She is a fraudster…,” alleged the lady.
It is important that people understand that Immanuel’s animated marketing of the drug bears no relevance to scientific evidence but just her own personal, unsubstantiated claims.
In his response, President, Guild of Medical Directors, Professor of ophthalmology Consultant ophthalmologist, Professor Olufemi Emmanuel Babalola, stated that the important point to note is that medical research has subjected HCQ to intense research.
While some studies suggest that it is effective, others have come to the opposite conclusion.
“It is also true that Senegal, where HCQ is routinely used, has one of the lowest Covid-19 case fatality rates in the world at 0.64% compared to 3.4% in the USA. Currently, a study is underway in LUTH on its efficacy and safety. Subsequently, a meta-analysis of all these studies should be undertaken to pool all the results and come up with a summative analysis which will guide clinicians,” he stated.
Until then, he advised that all anecdotal claims, such as the one from Dr. Stella Immanuel, must be taken with a pinch of salt, noting that HCQ may be a cause of serious complications including death, in some people. Other anecdotal claims, according to him, such as the herbal mixture from Madagascar have subsequently been proven ineffective.
Leader of the body of Private hospitals Owners in Nigeria and Guild of Medical Directors, whose responsibility is to manage the healthcare needs of about 70% of Nigerians, Babalola, stated that it was the reason why a lot of the burden in explaining the problem as related to the video naturally falls on the association.
“Therefore, we feel it is pertinent to explain or clarify the issues for Nigerians. We must reiterate that the Coronavirus is real and Covid-19 disease is an indiscriminate killer. We know from personal experience since it has killed many doctors and nurses all over the country, including our very own Professor Lovett Lawson. This disease is definitely not a joke and we strongly condemn the politicization of the disease and the treatments currently being used to fight the pandemic. As at today, the whole world is still actively looking for an effective treatment and of course, a vaccine. Until then, everyone has a responsibility to remain safe and protect one another through the ways proven to help.” He concluded.
Over 42,000 Nigerians have been confirmed positive to the virus with just a little under nine hundred have died because of the virus. Trump’s America has lost over 150,000 of her citizens amid of four million of them testing positive to the virus. The world has lost 668,073 people, 17,064,064 have been confirmed COVID-19 positive according to World Health Organization (WHO) report.
These frightful figures confront humanity with the challenge of the pandemic and asserts the fact that while powerful politicians play ping-pong with people’s lives; Corona virus continues to consume the body, spirit and soul of humanity.
