Yomi Lawal
I had to take an essential trip to Chicago on Tuesday the 12th of May. I ended up combining it with food run. Like we had the run on toilet paper a couple of weeks back at the peak of the coronavirus lockdown, the new run right now is for meat. Beef almost immediately gets cleared off the shelf because some states are taking counterproductive actions that is impacting the beef supply chain. So we took a family decision and fiam!, my wife and I went to Southside in Chicago to go get these essentials, facemask et al.
It was a 3-hour journey -6hrs roundtrip- and everyone at the shop tried to socially distance themselves. The shop maintained a queue outside as a means to limit the number of customers inside the store per time. They also provided a hand wash station as you walk in and provided basic plastic gloves. Let’s just say they knew people were not trying to die rather trying to live.
Frankly speaking, I am not in the least afraid of getting infected with the coronavirus. My fear is actually being infected but having decisions regarding medicines I should take and when to take them to reside in the hands of a medical doctor whose own decisions are made for him by a bureaucrat doctor in Washington. Essentially, my life is not in my hands, not in my doctor’s hands but in the hand of a man busy playing politics with the treatment I know works!
But I digress.
Chief Raymond was reported to have tested positive for the coronavirus around 1st of May 2020 [Pic 1] and by 15th of May had tested negative [Pic2]. He came out to give an interview. Excerpts from which goes..
“I still have doubts in my mind and I need to be educated. What’s the difference between COVID-19 and malaria? Every drug we were given were malaria medications.
Quite a number of persons who tested positive for Covid-19 were tested in reputable labs and hospitals in Abuja and were found to have lots of malaria parasite in their bloodstreams. When did malaria becomes synonymous with Covid-19?” – High Chief Raymond Dokpesi
He also talked about never being given any test results. From these, I noted two main things.
- The NCDC never gave him his test results and
- He and his grandkids were treated with malaria drugs.
His statement has set the “corosphere” abuzz.
Some argue he is saying that all he had was malaria and not COVID-19, and that this was borne out of shame of having contracted the coronavirus. Yet others say he is denying the existence of COVID-19 and calling NCDC a fraud. Our soldiers on the medical frontlines are majorly pissed -maybe rightly so- he appears to diss their work and sacrifice. They want to know how he thinks malaria requires the use of nose mask, and if he has seen malaria present with coughing, pneumonia, sore throat and difficulty in breathing.
Well, whatever Raymond meant, he never actually said it. This is where Raymond Dokpesi similarity with Raymond Redington may end. If you are wondering who Raymond Redington is, you need more television time.
I have learnt never to fact-check intentions because it makes the FactCheck a subjective endeavour rather an objective one.
So what did Chief Dokpesi say?
- He said he was not given any documentary evidence of being COVID-19 positive.
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He said many people whom NCDC said had COVID-19 were hitherto tested in reputable labs and their test results showed a high level of malaria parasites.
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He said he was treated with malaria drugs.
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He asked what the difference between malaria and COVID-19 was.
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He asked when malaria became synonymous with COVID-19.
On No1, he is not the first person to accuse NCDC of this professional nonsense. The NCDC has its reputation basically in tatters because of this frankly idiotic secrecy around the diagnosis and isolation of suspected COVID-19 patients. Remember the Benue state woman who was forced to make a video, they never gave her a documented result until she cried out to the world, and when they did, it wasn’t her result because the personal data and itinerary were wrong.
On No2, this should elicit brainstorming, not insults. It has long been established since 2005 that malaria drugs -specifical chloroquine- destroys coronaviruses, not only SARS-CoV-2. The use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine along with Azithromycin or even cough syrup (depending on accompanying symptoms) has been effectively used to treat COVID-19 positive patients in so many countries around the world. If COVID-19 does not present as malaria, how come basic malaria drugs are very effective in its treatment? Not only chloroquine, but some use Artemisia based medications (also used for malaria). May I also mention Quercetin at this point [Pic 3]. I had stumbled upon it about three weeks ago whilst searching for chloroquine alternatives. It is also a zinc ionophore and effective against same COVID-19 when used with zinc. It is also used in the treatment of malaria.
On No3, there is no ambiguity in his words. He is also not the first survivor to say so. The CMD of UCH, the governor of Bauchi state, Mr Doyin Okukpe and several sources I will not reveal affirm they were treated with malaria drugs.
Dokpesi No2 statement and the two questions he asked are the most intriguing to me.
But first, let me talk about faraway planets as background explanation. Do you know how astrophysicists “see” planets outside our own solar system? Planets are usually dark bodies. When you glance into the night sky, do you see how dark space appears? It is thus impossible to actually see a dark planet in a dark space. So what do astrophysicists do? They know planets orbit their own stars and the stars are bright.
If you pass in front of a lit focused table lamp in your room, it causes the light in the room to dim. Astrophysicists thus train their telescopes on the star they suspect have a planet orbiting it. They measure the expected reduction in that light which will occur when the planet passes in between the star and the observing telescope. The amount of dip in the light is used to estimate the size of the planet. You see how tongue-twisting and “big” their occupational identity sounds? Can you, however, notice how simple their solution to “see by proxy” is?
Dokpesi no2 statement only shows how we can develop a very cheap test to detect COVID-19. Malaria is not caused by a virus or bacteria, however, the fact that those labs detected malaria parasites could mean;
A. Either the SARS-CoV-2 increase malaria parasite activity in the body.
Or
B. Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is detected by standard malaria tests as a high-level malaria plasmodium infection.
This brings me to the conclusion.
If COVID-19 presents like acute malaria and the treatment of that malaria symptoms with standard malaria drugs effectively kills off the coronavirus, does it then matter if you are treating malaria or COVID-19 or why should you be focused on whether you have malaria or COVID-19 (aside from the risk of infecting others)?
Malaria is also a deadly disease that can kill you if left untreated. Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 “can” kill you if left untreated -if it develops into COVID-19. Why wait for coronavirus to develop into COVID-19 when what you had were malaria symptoms?
If chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine with zinc and regular antibiotics can treat it as we have seen it treat it, why are we then destroying our economy, educational systems and health over disease chloroquine treats?
Malaria is itself often misdiagnosed as a viral infection. It also has a 14day max period manifest for the severe types [Pic 4a, b].
Do you know that some types of malaria can hide in your liver for years and later cause a relapse when its been years you’ve even been bitten by a mosquito? Does this not make our local herb producers right when they tell us its “iba” (malaria) when we tell them our symptoms but sure we weren’t bitten by mosquitoes?.
Does it not also affirm the efficacy of the home remedies that involve the use of fruits and leaves which have been shown to have antioxidants, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antiviral activities?
COVID-19 is just a name, it is mere nomenclature. WHO gave the disease a name, they didn’t make the disease (hopefully ). It is the name that is novel, not the virus because you only know about something when it falls within your purview. China official outbreak began in December but it appears even France had been treating same COVID-19 since November 2019 [Pic 7].
We are playing a game we have no business playing, one we can’t afford. NCDC should stop being a tool in the hands of WHO and those who control the WHO, focus on the use of chloroquine and our local malaria remedies to quickly treat those with symptoms of COVID-19 and those who test positive but asymptomatic.
This is the logical thing to do.
Asking for isolation centres is a useless endeavour, and useful only for the “corolooting” that has been going on in the last 3 months.
Let the nation get back to work, lift the siege mounted by the unruly police force and spend that coronavirus money on providing actual healthcare, NCDC and their state counterparts, put a stop to this wastage!
We can develop a test kit or very cheap test process that can be done at any lab or clinic or even a pharmacy revolving around the detection of malaria parasites as means for diagnosing COVID-19, can’t we?
And High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, you have asked very good questions and I have tried to show your questions are valid and genius even.
The scientific answers to your questions can be uncovered by laboratory research which you can personally fund. I know quite a few biotechnology engineers and researchers who will run with this question you have asked and find answers that will benefit the whole nation. You can even get your friends to pitch in, are you game or you were only asking for a soundbite?
Yes, this is me asking you to fund research, imagine the “Dokpesi Test kit”. Yomi@yomilawal.me is my email sir, HMU!
