• New Cicada COVID variant detected across US states.

“Cicada” a nickname given to BA.3.2, a COVID-19 variant, is spreading around the world , according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.

Like most other variants, the symptoms of the Cicada variant are the same as those of other COVID-19 variant infections.

According to the CDC, these includes:

Runny or stuffy nose, Fever, Headache, Fatigue, Sneezing, Sore throat,Cough, Muscle pain or body aches Vomiting, Diarrhea, and Changes to the sense of smell or taste.

According to the latest available data from the health authorities, this variant has been spotted in 23 countries and in wastewater from 25 US states.

In November 2024, BA.3.2 popped up in a nose swab of a 5-year-old boy in South Africa, and it looked very different than its parent virus.

It was first picked up in the US last summer, in a traveler from the Netherlands.

In January , the first clinical sample from a sick patient turned out to be BA.3.2.

It appears to be circulating in the US at low levels, although testing has been scaled back since the height of the pandemic, so it may be more widespread than currently known.

A section of the Ebonyi State Ministry of Health, weekend , was gutted by fire with property worth hundreds of millions of naira destroyed.

The inferno destroyed the cold store housing immunisation and solar units which contained vaccines, vaccine carriers, cold chain boxes, laptops, documents, five refrigerators, two solar refrigerators, 45 solar batteries, inverters, including hospitals beds and foams received from the National Primary Health Care Development Authority (NPHCDA), Abuja, for distribution to local government areas across the state, among others.

The State Commissioner for Health, Dr Moses Ekuma, lamented the disaster and thanked God that no life was lost. He thanked the Commissioner for Power and Energy, the fire service personnel, and the security men who alerted him on time for their prompt response, which made the fire not spread to other parts of the building.

He said, “Different vaccines like BCG, penta, HPV vaccine etc that were all stored in that cold room were burnt”.

Health workers under the Joint Health Sector Unions and the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations are protesting against the proposed health sector regulatory bill, which is before the National Assembly.

They said that if allowed to pass, the law would subject every medical profession to the regulation of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.

They maintain that all health professions have their regulatory bodies, and that the new bill was seeking to make other health professionals second-class to medical doctors.

The protesters plan to also go to the National Assembly, where they hope to present their case to lawmakers.