A vote for Stella Immanuel

It does not cease to amaze me how we human beings are wont to make simple matters complicated. I am a lay man, I should say from the beginning. My understanding is that the whole world is looking for a cure for coronavirus. Fatalities have kept mounting.

In the United States, more than five million cases have been reported since the beginning of the outbreak, online publications so say, quoting data from Johns Hopkins University. Although more than 1.5 million are said to have recovered from the rampage, 162, 000 pandemic-related deaths have occurred. In the United Kingdom, the affliction is on the rise. Last Sunday, according to reports, 1,062 cases were recorded. It is said it surpassed the steady figure of 1,000 cases a day since June 26.

Research by Public Health England has shown that the infection rate has gone up by 35 per cent among 15 to 44 years age bracket over the last five weeks. In England, the percentage of increase in every 1000 cases in that age bracket rose by 11.9 from 8.8 in the week ended 5 July. Both England and Wales have recorded 51, 710 deaths as of 31 July. In our own country the number of those afflicted has climbed up to 47,000, and death closing in on figure 1, 000.

Greatly concerned and no longer able to bear the increases in the cases in about 200 countries on the surfaces of the earth, Dr. Stella Immanuel stepped out courageously, and spoke with conviction and passionately that people were dying needlessly while the cure is there in the dispensary of every hospital. This cure is found in Hydroxychlorouine. Just add zinc and vitamin C. In her clinic, more than 350 people had been healed. No single death was recorded, not even of the very senior citizens said to be most vulnerable because of their reduced immunity that comes with age. Her colleagues in the United States rose crying foul, some doctors also from Nigeria, were up in arms to shut her up. We were inundated with all manner of irrelevances. Oh, she came all the way from her base in Texas to Washington to cry out, to participate in a press conference organised by America’s Frontline Doctors.

Her traducers did not visit her clinic. They had no evidence to contradict her claims other than that she came from that far, and that her findings did not go through peer review, and therefore her claim must be wrong. They say she had her licence from Louisiana Texas and Kenturky. She crossed from Pediatrics to Adult Medicine/ Emergency. Mrs. Immanuel said she studied medicine in Nigeria, at the University of Calabar. She is a Camerounian. Therefore, she left Nigeria as a qualified general practitioner. Some say her public appearance was politically motivated; she was thought to be rooting for the return of Mr. Donald Trump for the second term as President of the United States. Meanwhile, many afflicted are dying daily. No one said, let’s first drive away the fox before we blame the hen, as our fathers would say. What does the world want: Lives, hale and bubbling or a continuing harvest of deaths?

What makes sense to me is you first save lives. It is only those who are alive who can determine whether Mr. Trump should be re-elected or not. Let us stall the spread of the pandemic and defeat Mr. COVID-19 first. The world is in a state of emergency. Whatever weapon can be fashioned to defeat the pandemic ought to be welcome. Dr. Stella Immanuel said no single person brought to her clinic had died. True or false? No one has disproved the claim. I would have thought given the facilities at the disposal of her colleagues in the U.S. and the skills of science journalists in the U.S. that would be a simple thing to do. There must be a record of those who were at the hospital. How many died of coronavirus there? She can’t be the only doctor in the hospital; there are also nurses. What do they whisper?

She has a governor in Nigeria to bear her witness. Governor Bala Abdulkadri Mohammed of Bauchi State said he was cured of coronavirus with Hydroxycloroquine. Senator Bala Mohammed spoke before most people were aware of any doctor known as Dr. Stella Immanuel. But more instructive is the testimony of our own Dr. Doyin Okupe. Because of his foray into politics, it is little known, and if known, hardly remembered that Dr. Okupe is a medical doctor. Okupe was first spokesman for former President Obasanjo and later Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan. Okupe, also seriously down with coronavirus affliction, said hydroxychloroquine was among the medications he received while at the isolation centre. He listed other helps as Azithromycin; Zink Sulphate; and Vitamin C. There was also a mixture of ginger, garlic, turmeric and lemon. In Kaduna, Dongoyaro leaves were added. Engineer Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo State, also spoke of the health remedies he received while he was knocked down by Mr. COVID-19. He was in the good hands of Professor Alonge renowned physician who also is the chairman of the team worrying over the pandemic at Ibadan for Oyo State. He said proudly this week, that Oyo State has not recorded a single death? Is that not a break-through? The traducers of Dr. Stella Immanuel want scientists to continue arguing among themselves while people are dying, and wait for the much expected long-in-coming vaccine from the laboratories in the U.S. and the UK. We are told these will not be ready for another six months. What I subscribe to is the caution by our NCDC against self-medication.

I doff my cap for the brave, daring and passionate, non-conformist physician by name, Dr. Stella Immanuel. Step forward, wonderful lady and take a bow! What she deserves is a standing ovation.