The Believer and Lazarus of Bethany

“Master, the one you love is ill” (John 11:3)

Dear Holy People of God of Ste Anne’s Parish Family,

Good is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good!

The Gospel of this Sunday presents us with the resuscitation of Lazarus, which is very different from the resurrection of Jesus. The former, Lazarus, dies again, as is evident from the text itself: “Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he (Jesus) was there and came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus” (John 12: 9-11).

With resuscitation, Lazarus returns to biological life, subjected once more to the laws of Aristotelian Categories or Newtonian physics, that is, the operations of space and time. He could once again feel tired, hungry and thirsty. Lazarus, brought back to life by Jesus, was still subjected to all that characterizes the human condition. But with the resurrection, there is the entry into the power of God, into the being of God, a power and being that is beyond space and life, beyond the laws of physics. The resurrection is the definitive otherness. There is a new form of existence, what Paul struggles to explain, “we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

From the perspective of the inner logic of the Hebrew Bible otherwise known as the Old Testament, the “scandal” of the resurrection of Jesus resides in the fact that history continued, after Easter Sunday. Judaism, at least in the form that developed and as witnessed to by prophets such as Ezekiel, the book of the Maccabees and the book of Daniel, gradually arrived at the understanding of a resurrection from the dead. But this was understood to mark the end of history, that is, the end of time and space, wherein history will enter into the definitive reality of God, so that God will become all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). In other words, history was not supposed to continue after Easter Sunday. There was therefore, a sense of a definitive end-of-timeness, an eschaton, that marked the understanding of resurrection faith in Judaism. Martha gives voice to this eschatological (end-of-time) understanding of the Jewish understanding of resurrection in this Sunday’s gospel, when she says to Jesus: “I know he (Lazarus) will rise again at the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). And herein lies the scandal of the resuscitation of Lazarus, because, correctly understood as St John the Evangelist does, it marks the definitive pointer to the resurrection of Jesus. And yet, as it was with Lazarus and as will be seen with the resurrection, history, understood as the measurement of time, does not come to an end.

In the theology of the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus by Jesus is the definitive sign pointing to the Lord’s passion, death and eventual resurrection. St John even gives us certain “passion details” around the Lazarus narrative: “(…) From that day they were determined to kill him (Jesus) (John 11:53); “Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead” (Jon 12:1). The cloud of the darkness of death was clearly in the horizon, with the sign of the raising of Lazarus.

Dear Holy People of God, like the Blind Man of Last Sunday’s Gospel, Lazarus represents all of humanity that is dead, and that Jesus seeks to bring back to life, not just biological life, that is, life in this world, but eternal life, that is, life with God. During these days in which our beloved city of Salem and the wider world is suffocating under the pandemic of the COVID 19, the cry of Martha and Mary to Jesus is ours, in a very real, pragmatic and existential sense: “Master, the one you love is ill” (John 11:3). The concrete situation of the world of COVID 19 brings these words to a shocking realism: Our world is literally “ill.” But Bethany teaches us that there will be a raising to new life. Lazarus of Bethany reminds us that the power of God will break into the world of COVID 19, and that the power of God is stronger than death. Bethany teaches us that even if we feel that the Lord is delaying in coming with his power, that the Lord is slow in responding to our cry, as Martha and Mary felt – “Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died (…) (John 11:21); “Mary went to Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw herself at his feet, saying, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32); “Martha said to him, “Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth day” (John 11:39); – the Lord’s belatedness, the Lord’s “four days” of lateness in coming, eventually turns out to be just on time, for as Augustine points out in book XI of the Confessions, time, that is,  past (memory), present (sight) and future (expectation), are all present, with the Lord: the past is the present of the things past; the present is the present of things present, and the future is the present of things future. “All time belongs to Christ,” as we profess on Easter Night in the ceremony of the lighting of the Easter Candle. Hence, let us remember that even the present time is in the hands of the Lord, and that the Lord will raise new life from the present time of COVID 19, ushering a new reality in human history which we as yet cannot fathom but which we can already see with the eyes of faith, that faith of Martha and Mary that we encounter in today’s gospel.

In Martha and Mary, the believer and the Church finds what we can and must do, besides the reasonable precautionary measures of body hygiene and social distancing, namely, to cry to the Lord in prayer: “Master, the world you so love (John 3:16), is ill” (John 11:3). We too cry out, “Master, our world needs to be raised from death. Jesus, do not let us be without you in the Sacraments for too long. Jesus, do not delay in coming into the world of the here and now, and of putting an end to this pandemic. Help all our medical personnel who are on the frontline of this battle. Help the efforts of all researching for cures and vaccines. Grant the joy of your presence to the dead and your consolation to the living. Grant serenity to our anxious hearts. And May we feel the maternal closeness of your Mother, Mary, Help and Comforter of the Afflicted,” now and always, Amen. My Holy Mass this Sunday will be offered for all the families of our Ste Anne’s parish family. May the Lord bless you and be close to you. May the Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord fill you with is peace

By Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

Sainte Anne Parish, Boston

Cash Trapped. Worsening tribal tensions, frightening divisions among Cameroon government army soldiers and domestic discontent. An unending Boko Haram and Southern Cameroons crisis. Huge security challenges in the East Region coming from the breakdown of law and order in the Central African Republic.

To be sure, even before Cameroon announced its first coronavirus case, the CPDM government was struggling under the weight of political and economic problems that are increasingly undermining the integrity of the Francophone dominated regime in Yaoundé.

With the coming of the coronavirus, Cameroon Concord News Group can now reveal that matters have become much, much worse for President Biya and his gang — so much so that the 87 year old shamefully accepted to be quarantined at his palace in Mvomeka’a. That is because, for the French Cameroun ailing leaders: Biya, Niat, Cavaye, coronavirus represents a true game changer in the French Cameroun political story and its very unholy marriage with Southern Cameroons.

The butcher of Yaoundé and his acolytes are presently facing an improbable occurrence that no one in their corrupt circle predicted, but which now has profound and potentially catastrophic consequences. This is what coronavirus is for Biya and his Francophone dominated French Cameroun regime.

The CPDM problems start with the failing health of French Cameroun’s ruling elites. Frankly speaking, the so-called members of the CPDM political bureau or better still the upper echelons of the French Cameroun leadership are overwhelmingly aging and infirm, and there are fears that coronavirus may exact a deadly toll on this cohort.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands the 80 year old National Assembly Speaker, Cavaye Djibril was part of an Air France flight declared to be high risk by the medical authorities of the Yaoundé Nsimalen international airport. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril deliberately confused parliamentary immunity with sanitary immunity by rushing to the national assembly and attended 2 plenary sessions.

Yaoundé has been maintaining a kind of silence of the lamb on the Cavaye Djibril coronavirus issue but information has filtered out that the regime is moving towards the quarantine of the 167 MPs currently in the lower house of parliament as it was revealed Cavaye Djibril had caused significant contamination in the nation’s capital after he came in contact with hundreds of people immediately after he was reelected as speaker.

Last week, Cameroon Intelligence Report Yaoundé city correspondent revealed that coronavirus had afflicted more than two dozen members of the National Assembly and at least nine top figures of the Biya regime. This figure reportedly expanded significantly and prompted President Biya to abandoned government business in Yaoundé and moved to his Mvomeka’a palace immediately after a meeting with the American ambassador.

To date, the coronavirus is yet to claim the lives of any senior official of the Biya Francophone regime but it can certainly be expected in coming days as measures put in place by Chief Dion Ngute, the so-called Prime Minister and Head of Government has greatly helped in exposing French Cameroun’s ruling  elite as incompetent and out of touch. Biya and his men are now in the throes of a profound political, security and health crises with no ability to contain the spread of the virus and only fostering complicity in increasing its true scope to get money from the World Health Organization.

The number of currently reported Cameroonian cases of the disease is likely a gross overestimate. Given the Biya regime’s long history of collecting and misappropriating funds from the World Health Organization, people in the know in Yaoundé and Douala say that the real number of coronavirus cases in Cameroon might actually be orders of a lower than a higher magnitude.

The regime in Yaoundé has done its utmost to increase the extent of the crisis now ravaging the international community. But videos and social-media posts of thousands of Cameroonians enjoying themselves and trading in the streets throughout the country, have painted a very different picture to the European Union and the World Health Organization.

But coronavirus isn’t just a political challenge for President Biya. It’s also a major blow to the notion that he is a demigod. Biya now is even afraid to meet his own Secretary General at the presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and his Minister of Defense, Joseph Beti Assomo. State secrets are now being discussed via a telephone communication network they never trusted.

The movement of people in the Douala and Yaoundé metropolis even after a lockdown was announced and business going on as usual throughout the national territory has very much highlighted the disconnect between the Biya CPDM establishment and the rest of the population. It is evidently clear that Biya is no longer in control of the nation.

Will President Biya and his Francophone Beti Ewondo regime survive the current crisis intact? Like previous ones, it might. But with oil and gas no longer what the West and China needs now, the coronavirus might end up accomplishing what years of pro-democracy actions could not: the collapse of the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Even at their most effective – and draconian – containment strategies have only slowed the spread of the respiratory disease Covid-19. With the World Health Organization finally declaring a pandemic, all eyes have turned to the prospect of a vaccine, because only a vaccine can prevent people from getting sick.

About 35 companies and academic institutions are racing to create such a vaccine, at least four of which already have candidates they have been testing on animals. The first of these – produced by Boston-based biotech firm Moderna – will enter human trials imminently.

This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. China shared that sequence in early January, allowing research groups around the world to grow the live virus and study how it invades human cells and makes people sick.

But there is another reason for the head start. Though nobody could have predicted that the next infectious disease to threaten the globe would be caused by a coronavirus – flu is generally considered to pose the greatest pandemic risk – vaccinologists had hedged their bets by working on “prototype” pathogens. “The speed with which we have [produced these candidates] builds very much on the investment in understanding how to develop vaccines for other coronaviruses,” says Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Oslo-based nonprofit the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which is leading efforts to finance and coordinate Covid-19 vaccine development.

Coronaviruses have caused two other recent epidemics – severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in China in 2002-04, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), which started in Saudi Arabia in 2012. In both cases, work began on vaccines that were later shelved when the outbreaks were contained. One company, Maryland-based Novavax, has now repurposed those vaccines for Sars-CoV-2, and says it has several candidates ready to enter human trials this spring. Moderna, meanwhile, built on earlier work on the Mers virus conducted at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland.

Sars-CoV-2 shares between 80% and 90% of its genetic material with the virus that caused Sars, hence, its name. Both consist of a strip of ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside a spherical protein capsule that is covered in spikes. The spikes lock on to receptors on the surface of cells lining the human lung – the same type of receptor in both cases – allowing the virus to break into the cell. Once inside, it hijacks the cell’s reproductive machinery to produce more copies of itself, before breaking out of the cell again and killing it in the process.

All vaccines work according to the same basic principle. They present part or all of the pathogen to the human immune system, usually in the form of an injection and at a low dose, to prompt the system to produce antibodies to the pathogen. Antibodies are a kind of immune memory which, having been elicited once, can be quickly mobilized again if the person is exposed to the virus in its natural form.

Traditionally, immunization has been achieved using live, weakened forms of the virus, or part or whole of the virus once it has been inactivated by heat or chemicals. These methods have drawbacks. The live form can continue to evolve in the host, for example, potentially recapturing some of its virulence and making the recipient sick, while higher or repeat doses of the inactivated virus are required to achieve the necessary degree of protection. Some of the Covid-19 vaccine projects are using these tried-and-tested approaches, but others are using newer technology. One more recent strategy – the one that Novavax is using, for example – constructs a “recombinant” vaccine. This involves extracting the genetic code for the protein spike on the surface of Sars-CoV-2, which is the part of the virus most likely to provoke an immune reaction in humans, and pasting it into the genome of a bacterium or yeast – forcing these microorganisms to churn out large quantities of the protein. Other approaches, even newer, bypass the protein and build vaccines from the genetic instruction itself. This is the case for Moderna and another Boston company, CureVac, both of which are building Covid-19 vaccines out of messenger RNA.

Cepi’s original portfolio of four funded Covid-19 vaccine projects was heavily skewed towards these more innovative technologies, and last week it announced $4.4m (£3.4m) of partnership funding with Novavax and with a University of Oxford vectored vaccine project. “Our experience with vaccine development is that you can’t anticipate where you’re going to stumble,” says Hatchett, meaning that diversity is key. And the stage where any approach is most likely to stumble is clinical or human trials, which, for some of the candidates, are about to get under way.

Clinical trials, an essential precursor to regulatory approval, usually take place in three phases. The first, involving a few dozen healthy volunteers, tests the vaccine for safety, monitoring for adverse effects. The second, involving several hundred people, usually in a part of the world affected by the disease, looks at how effective the vaccine is, and the third does the same in several thousand people. But there’s a high level of attrition as experimental vaccines pass through these phases. “Not all horses that leave the starting gate will finish the race,” says Bruce Gellin, who runs the global immunization program for the Washington DC-based nonprofit, the Sabin Vaccine Institute.

There are good reasons for that. Either the candidates are unsafe, or they’re ineffective, or both. Screening out duds is essential, which is why clinical trials can’t be skipped or hurried. Approval can be accelerated if regulators have approved similar products before. The annual flu vaccine, for example, is the product of a well-honed assembly line in which only one or a few modules have to be updated each year. In contrast, Sars-CoV-2 is a novel pathogen in humans, and many of the technologies being used to build vaccines are relatively untested too. No vaccine made from genetic material – RNA or DNA – has been approved to date, for example. So the Covid-19 vaccine candidates have to be treated as brand new vaccines, and as Gellin says: “While there is a push to do things as fast as possible, it’s really important not to take shortcuts.”

An illustration of that is a vaccine that was produced in the 1960s against respiratory syncytial virus, a common virus that causes cold-like symptoms in children. In clinical trials, this vaccine was found to aggravate those symptoms in infants who went on to catch the virus. A similar effect was observed in animals given an early experimental Sars vaccine. It was later modified to eliminate that problem but, now that it has been repurposed for Sars-CoV-2, it will need to be put through especially stringent safety testing to rule out the risk of enhanced disease.

It’s for these reasons that taking a vaccine candidate all the way to regulatory approval typically takes a decade or more, and why President Trump sowed confusion when, at a meeting at the White House on 2 March, he pressed for a vaccine to be ready by the US elections in November – an impossible deadline. “Like most vaccinologists, I don’t think this vaccine will be ready before 18 months,” says Annelies Wilder-Smith, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. That’s already extremely fast, and it assumes there will be no hitches.

In the meantime, there is another potential problem. As soon as a vaccine is approved, it’s going to be needed in vast quantities – and many of the organizations in the Covid-19 vaccine race simply don’t have the necessary production capacity. Vaccine development is already a risky affair, in business terms, because so few candidates get anywhere near the clinic. Production facilities tend to be tailored to specific vaccines, and scaling these up when you don’t yet know if your product will succeed is not commercially feasible. Cepi and similar organizations exist to shoulder some of the risk, keeping companies incentivized to develop much-needed vaccines. Cepi plans to invest in developing a Covid-19 vaccine and boosting manufacturing capacity in parallel, and earlier this month it put out a call for $2bn to allow it to do so.

Once a Covid-19 vaccine has been approved, a further set of challenges will present itself. “Getting a vaccine that’s proven to be safe and effective in humans takes one at best about a third of the way to what’s needed for a global immunization program,” says global health expert Johnathan Quick of Duke University in North Carolina, author of The End of Epidemics (2018). “Virus biology and vaccines technology could be the limiting factors, but politics and economics are far more likely to be the barrier to immunization.”

The problem is making sure the vaccine gets to all those who need it. This is a challenge even within countries where they have worked out guidelines. In the scenario of a flu pandemic, for example, the UK would prioritize vaccinating healthcare and social care workers, along with those considered at highest medical risk – including children and pregnant women – with the overall goal of keeping sickness and death rates as low as possible. But in a pandemic, countries also have to compete with each other for medicines.

Because pandemics tend to hit hardest those countries that have the most fragile and underfunded healthcare systems, there is an inherent imbalance between need and purchasing power when it comes to vaccines. During the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, for example, vaccine supplies were snapped up by nations that could afford them, leaving poorer ones short. But you could also imagine a scenario where, say, India – a major supplier of vaccines to the developing world – not unreasonably decides to use its vaccine production to protect its own 1.3 billion-strong population first, before exporting any.

Outside of pandemics, the WHO brings governments, charitable foundations and vaccine-makers together to agree an equitable global distribution strategy, and organizations like Gavi, the vaccine alliance, have come up with innovative funding mechanisms to raise money on the markets for ensuring supply to poorer countries. But each pandemic is different, and no country is bound by any arrangement the WHO proposes – leaving many unknowns. As Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, points out: “The question is, what will happen in a situation where you’ve got national emergencies going on?”

This is being debated, but it will be a while before we see how it plays out. The pandemic, says Wilder-Smith, “will probably have peaked and declined before a vaccine is available”. A vaccine could still save many lives, especially if the virus becomes endemic or perennially circulating – like flu – and there are further, possibly seasonal, outbreaks. But until then, our best hope is to contain the disease as far as possible. To repeat the sage advice: wash your hands.

Source: Guardian

Cameroon Concord News Group is of the opinion that news of Paul Biya’s death is being greatly exaggerated again. By our records, this is the 8th time the world’s oldest dictator has died.

In one of our extensive investigations on his crimes in 2017, we spoke to someone in his inner core who opined that these announcements of his death captivated the ailing dictator. Our informant said ‘these stories of his passing away always lift his spirit’. Weird but factual!!

So, before Ambazonians and Cameroonians start their celebrations, Cameroon Concord News Group urges them to exercise restraint.

CCN and CIR Editorial Desk

Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report have consistently stated that the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is the greatest achievement in this revolution. We are again reiterating our position and informing our readers that the former Communication Secretary’s recent outing questioning if the creation of the Interim Government was a wrong idea is shameful, disgusting and disgraceful.

For Chris Anu’s information, the journey that led to the formation of the Interim Government may have been rocky. Rocky as it was, what matters is not the rocky journey but the Interim Government that was established to oversee and crystallize the realization of Ambazonia’s 58-year-old dream of an independent sovereign Federal Republic.

It is evidently clear that the formation of the Interim Government rallied, reassured and refocused the struggle of the oppressed people of Ambazonia for independence. With this appropriate leadership under His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe in place, the people of Ambazonia arose on September 22, 2017 in its overwhelming majority to express an irrevocable determination to proclaim its independence on October 1, 2017.

Southern Cameroons history has recorded that His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe oversaw the realization of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia 58 year’s old dream. For this reason, President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe remains a strong symbol of the liberation and independence of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia. Because Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is the symbol of the Ambazonia liberation, independence and freedom, the people of Southern Cameroons are determined more than ever before to fight to the last man to free him from the captivity of French Cameroun.

It is indeed very sad and regrettable that the man who started the mission to fight and liberate the Ambazonian President, members of the Interim Government and thousands of Ambazonian’s in captivity with his historic trip to Nigeria is now the individual questioning if the birth of the Interim Government was a wrong idea.  People of Ambazonia, the mission must continue until the liberation of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, his top aides and all Southern Cameroonians is attained.

Again, it is a matter of profound regret that Mr. Chris Anu who has personally benefitted from the creation of the IG as he now owns a radio and television station in the US which he never had in his entire 25 years is the one stating that the Interim Government was a bad idea.

There are reasons why the disgraced former Ambazonia Communications Secretary is now an anti Southern Cameroons revolution force. He had always contested privately the leadership of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Interim Government and because of free money, he and his Pastor acolyte, Samuel Ikome Sako have evinced every possible determination to derail and sabotage the IG and the liberation struggle.

Chris Anu, Samuel Ikome Sako and the Maryland consortium of Southern Cameroons crime syndicates are up in arms organizing all forms of dubious platforms to sabotage the IG and the peoples’ liberation agenda. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group, call on the sovereign people of Ambazonia to stand on their way.

Southern Cameroonians have resolutely sacrificed, toiled for these 58 years to liberate and re-establish their capital in Buea, with its mythical glory in freedom and democratic governance.  History has recorded that it was during the mass movement to Buea to raise the flag of sovereignty and freedom on October 1, 2017, that French Cameroun unleashed bombs on armless Ambazonian civilians with helicopter gunships killing hundreds and maiming thousands.

Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report considers it a matter of grave concern for Mr Chris Anu to trivialize the sacrifices, the blood, the aspirations and will of the sovereign people of the Southern Cameroons by daring to question the essence of the Ambazonia Interim Government. Southern Cameroonians are very much aware that there was only one known Judas Iscariot! Consequently, Ambazonians will not tolerate the floating of this provocative thought by Judas Iscariot’s surrogates lest it corrupts the gullible. It is regrettable that this insane auditioning of the creation of the IG is being fostered now by a man no one knew in Southern Cameroons journalism.

This genocidal war of choice declared by the arch terrorist President Paul Biya of French Cameroun has displaced, killed, and maimed millions of Southern Cameroonians within and out of its national territory. A key test of loyalty to the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is the individual and collective contributions to Ambazonia’s ground zero war efforts; buying of defense bonds, the county by county contributions support, medical and sustenance support to the Ambazonian refugees, the Ambazonia Interim Government and symbols of the Ambazonia sovereignty represented by the jailed leaders in Kondengui and in the West by Vice President Dabney Yerima.

The ABC television network is no longer an attribute of sovereign governance in Southern Cameroons and must not be supported through the generous contributions of the Ambazonia diaspora.

Cameroon Concord News Group is now questioning the patriotism and motivations of men like Chris Anu, Sako Ikome and Elvis Kumeta who are persistently campaigning to sabotage the IG and the people’s quest for freedom. The Maryland cartel have boasted how they more than anyone in this struggle hold the key to the international community. True achievers have no reason to rely on self-seeking boasting or seek to tantalize the gullible with claims to influence in high places and wealth to justify their claims to power through deceit rather than seeking power on the basis of their proven record of support to our refugees, the legal fund for the defense of the President and the self-defense war of liberation and Ground Zero operations to attain the objectives.

Chris Anu and Sako Ikome have all been using demagogy and rhetoric to dazzle and confound gullible Southern Cameroonians. With fake images from the Lebialem County on Field Marshall, Chris Anu falsely raised the hopes that he alone possessed the military prowess to confront the enemy, liberate Ambazonians and protect the people.  A majority of Ambazonians fell for that costly deceit despite the persistent warnings by Cameroon Concord News Group.

It is surprising that power ambitions of this Maryland crime syndicate is supported by some so-called activists and front line leaders despite the calamitous slaughtering of our people currently going on in Ground Zero.

Cameroon Concord News Group strongly advises citizens of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to support Vice President Dabney Yerima’s self-defense war efforts.  Support for the Interim Government, contributions to the treasury as well as contributing for the wellbeing of Ambazonia refugees and internally displaced, the legal defence fund for the President His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, members of the Interim Government in captivity and hundreds of thousands of Ambazonia citizens illegally held captive in French Cameroun’s concentration camps are a litmus test for patriotism and recognition.

Southern Cameroonians are now aware that Chris Anu, Sako Ikome, Elvis Kumeta are cunning individuals who are in this struggle to enrich themselves.  Lest we forget, French Cameroun has the mineral and natural resources of the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia which it steals to use to corrupt everywhere, including some Ambazonians but the overwhelming majority of Ambazonians have but the love for the Ambazonia fatherland and the personal sacrifices and contributions they are making to recover their territory and their dignity.   With more determination and support, Ambazonia will cease to be French Cameroun’s Alibaba treasured paradise. It will be liberated soon through the contributions and support of its determined citizens.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-In-Chief

Sisiku AyukTabe is due to appeal his life sentence in court in April. The leader of the bloody quest for an independent Ambazonia in Anglophone Cameroon told DW about his terms for dialogue with the regime in Yaounde.

“It will be a shame for the international community to wait and come late, as was the case in Rwanda,” Sisiku AyukTabe told DW. The Ambazonian leader sounded the often repeated warning in a written reply to DW from his cell at Yaounde Principal Prison. AyukTabe and nine members of his de facto cabinet had just heard from their lawyers that their appeal case was postponed to April 16. A military court condemned the 10 men to life in prison for terrorism and incitement in August 2019. They had been among scores of separatists who were detained in a brutal crackdown by the regime of President Paul Biya. The separatist movement, AyukTabe told DW, is open to dialogue but on condition that the regime in Yaounde is not at the forefront. A UN-backed mediation process is the only way forward.

In 2017, secessionists declared the Anglophone parts of Cameroon, known also as Southern Cameroons, as an independent nation called Ambazonia ‘An issue of sovereignty’ “Southern Cameroons is fighting for a total and unconditional independence from Cameroon as opposed to the independence by joining [French Cameroon] to which we were lured by the United Nations and the Trusteeship System in 1961,” said AyukTabe. Four years into the separatist struggle, Biya still sees the conflict as an internal matter. His national dialogue for peace was stillborn and his decision to grant ‘special status’ for the English-speaking North West and South West regions rejected. “The Special Status as conceived by the regime of Cameroon’s president, Mr. Paul Biya, is clearly a joke in very bad taste,” said AyukTabe. Biya, he argues, is in no position to confer any status on any portion of the Anglophone regions. “The conflict in Southern Cameroons relates to issues of sovereignty brought about by a botched UN decolonization of the former trust territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom administration.” The people of the region are united and determined to right the wrongs of an aborted independence process and to “restore their sovereignty,” he told DW.

Anglophone separatists leaders were absent from President Biya’s dialogue for peace in September 2019 President Biya’s internal matter Political analyst John Ako agrees that Biya’s interventions to end the crisis to date are laughable at best. “Of what nature is the so called special status in Cameroon? A special status in reality including government officals is known as nothing. In fact there is no substance to the special status.” In the meantime, the bloodshed has continued unabated. An accurate picture of the atrocities and the cost to human life in the Anglophone regions is hard to gauge. The UN puts death toll at 3,000 and the number of internally displaced people at more than 679,000. In November 2016, lawyers and teachers in the region embarked on a series of street demonstrations to demand equal treatment. Their civic action later morphed into frequent running gun battles between the military and separatist fighters. AyukTabe and his followers have been engaged in a full-scale armed separatist struggle since. The bodies have been piling up and residents have been fleeing the most volatile parts of the Anglophone regions as Biya’s army tries to crush the movement. Some 60,000 of them have crossed the border into Nigeria. Over 855,000 children have been unable to attend school amid the fighting and tensions for several years. AyukTabe insists that Biya must withdraw the military from the streets of the regions, free those who have been detained over the conflict. That, and engaging in talks mediated by the UN, would address the root causes of the crisis.

Separatists are arming up Political analyst John Ako warns of the risk that fighting could escalate as separatist fighters, known locally as “Amba Boys” who started with Dane guns have now acquired sophisticated weaponry and experience. “The days are getting darker because these boys have not only gained experience and formal training in neighboring countries, but are bringing sophisticated weapons too,” Ako told DW. Human Rights Watch has reported that the armed separatists have committed untold atrocities in the Anglophone regions.  AyukTabe told DW that the perpetrators were militias who are sponsored by the Biya regime that wants to “demonize“ the separatist movement. “The pace, intensity and gruesomeness of killings has accelerated in recent times. The presence of Ambazonian self-defence fighters is the only thing preventing the complete extermination of the civilian population in Southern Cameroons,” he said. “For the very few self-defence fighters that were foolish enough to heed to Mr. Biya’s call and dropped their weapons, they have been subjected to torture, imprisonment and even summary execution.” Ako says the question of which side is to blame is not that clear cut. “The Ambazonian soldiers are committing a lot of errors. If they miss their target and continue attacking civilians and civilian targets such as churches, markets, or schools, these are war crimes.”

Civilians in Cameroon caught up in separatist battle

An appeal court victory? In the separatist strongholds of Buea and Bamenda, many believe that the release of AyukTabe and other separatist leaders could signal a return to peace. “Let them be released so people can get back to their normal lives because there has been a lot of suffering,” Sangtum Banabas, a 33-year-old commercial motorbike rider, told DW. Tem Hycenth is sad that thousands have died in the Anglophone regions. He wants the two sides to the conflict to make peace for the sake of the people. Taniform Jonas is of another opinion. “Cameroon has no judicial system. It is only Almighty God who will free the detained Ambazonia leaders. I pray that President Paul Biya pardons them so we can have peace again,” the 67-year-old said. As Cameroon reports a rising number of coronavirus cases, concern is growing in the conflict-torn regions and many would like to see an end to conflict sooner rather than later, in order to deal with the outbreak. Ayuk Tabe and the others were arrested in Nigeria in January 2018 and extradited under questionable circumstances. Around seven months later, at a nightlong trial in a military court in Yaounde, he and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The 10 had asylum status in Nigeria at the time of their arrest. AyukTabe and his de facto cabinet have appealed their conviction. The hearing is set for April 16, 2020 in the Yaounde Appeal Court. DW asked barristers what they thought of Ayuk Tabe’s pending appeal case.

President Paul Biya is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders Diplomacy, not guns Defence lawyer Amungwa Tanyi Nico is sure that the verdict of the military court will ultimately be overturned. It has been a case that is “more political than judicial” being heard in “kangaroo courts,” he said. “We’ve been putting our best as usual in order to get the public to understand that our people can never have justice here because at the court of first instance — the military tribunal  they were supposed to be freed. That court did not have the competence to try people with refugee status.” But Julius Achu, a lawyer for the regime in cases against the separatists, believes the appeals court could amend the military court’s verdict. “The judges take the decision according to their consciences and the law,” he told DW. It is his view that releasing the separatists would have little effect if the fighters who hiding out in the bushes of the Anglophone region fail to disarm. “There’s no government in this world that will ever accept that you take up arms and say we should separate and they accept to separate.”

 Culled from DeustcheWelle  

The Anglophone Crisis has ravaged an area of Cameroon that is home to more than 3.5 million people – approximately a seventh of the country’s population – and yet it remains one of the world’s forgotten conflicts. General strikes and protests beginning in 2016 gave way to a formal declaration of independence the following year, pitting English-speaking separatists against President Paul Biya’s Francophone government in Yaoundé. The situation has deteriorated since, with last month’s parliamentary elections leading to further unrest.

At the start of the year, Mr. Biya promised that the deployment of additional troops to the area would ensure that the vote proceeded as planned. Polls across the Northwest and Southwest regions were indefinitely postponed anyway, even as the military presence remained.

In the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, teenagers are kidnapped and mutilated by separatist militants who want to discourage them from attending schools. Villages like Ngarbuh are the site of brutal massacres, shows of force orchestrated by government soldiers seeking to dissuade civilians from harbouring dissidents. Candidates for political office risk kidnapping and assaults and more than 80% of schools, and 40% of health centres are closed. Over 3,000 people are dead and more than 700,000 displaced, including 50,000 refugees who have fled across the border to Nigeria. The Cameroonian army’s inability to curb separatist influence and its complicity in atrocities like the attack on Ngarbuh, suggests that higher numbers of boots on the ground will do little to stem the bloodshed.

Cameroon’s linguistic divide and the grievances that it has fostered is rooted in the country’s very foundation. A 1961 referendum led to what is currently Northwest and Southwest Cameroon joining a newly-independent French Cameroon, instead of English-speaking Nigeria to the north despite a history of English rule. The absence of leadership from the British and French governments, whose forerunners laid the groundwork for this powder keg, is a particularly striking failure.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been silent on the matter since a 2018 tweet, back when he was Foreign Minister, which noted an “urgent need to pursue dialogue, decentralisation and respect #humanrights in Anglophone Regions as [Paul Biya] has previously committed.”

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to exert “maximum pressure” on Mr. Biya to address the Ngarbuh massacre. He quickly adopted a more conciliatory tone. A phone call at the beginning of March succeeded in defusing the resulting tensions between France and Cameroon, but did little to advance prospects of a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Biya’s commitment to an investigation of the massacre following the call was a hollow victory for Macron. Cameroon’s government had already announced it was opening an inquiry and the problems the country faces extend far beyond one act of violence.

Efforts within Cameroon to find a resolution have been more concerted but just as ineffective. The Major National Dialogue, a summit called by Mr. Biya in September and October last year, made for good political theatre. It excluded several major separatist leaders, some of whom were still in government detention. These meetings produced vague commitments for greater Anglophone autonomy. A period of intensified violence immediately followed them in western Cameroon.

Though devolution is a step in the right direction, Mr. Biya’s subsequent efforts to placate the separatists were doomed to fail, due to their limited scope and the lack of consultation. Legislation passed by parliament in December promised “special status” for the Northwest and Southwest regions, granting them their own legislative assemblies and executive government. The bill was pursued by the Biya government unilaterally with little concern for the input of the people it was meant to appease. Moreover, the provisions granted under “special status” are insufficient. Critics describe it as “too little, too late,” noting that many of these autonomous institutions would still depend on Yaoundé to approve their decisions. Amid a crisis where lack of trust in the central government fuels Anglophone resistance, only genuine consultation and good-faith negotiations can remedy the situation.

For that kind of dialogue to happen, French and British absenteeism must end. Mr. Macron, whose country is Cameroon’s closest partner, should follow the lead of President Donald Trump, whose administration last year reduced military assistance and trade concessions to Cameroon in response to its human rights violations. Military and economic influence can be used to corral Mr. Biya into commencing negotiations and the involvement of foreign leaders in the peace process will help ease the doubts of separatist leaders. Several Anglophone groups boycotted the Major National Dialogue due to scepticism about the Cameroonian president’s intentions and lack of international oversight. Meaningful involvement from Messrs Trump, Macron and Johnson would go some way in kick-starting the peace process.

Mr. Biya will need to engage with the broad array of separatist groups claiming to represent English-speaking Cameroonians. There is no point for a peace agreement that excludes some groups, as they will simply continue fighting. Releasing political prisoners and mollifying the concerns of separatist leaders who boycotted last year’s summit is imperative. The separatists, for their part, cannot continue to violently enforce bans on education and political activities if they want to reduce military presence in the west. The government will not entertain reducing its troop deployment – a necessary precursor to fruitful negotiations – if militants continue to deprive the people in the region of education and healthcare access.

If Mr. Biya and the relevant opposition leaders are able to begin discussions, a successful outcome will depend on significant concessions from both sides. The extreme position of many separatists, an independent Anglophone state called Ambazonia, is untenable and would not be accepted by Mr. Biya or the international community. On the other hand, the response to December’s devolution bill proves that fundamental change is necessary to appease Cameroon’s English-speakers. Returning the country to a federal system (it was shortsightedly transformed into a unitary state in 1972) would preserve ultimate authority in Yaoundé, while still providing those in the Northwest and Southwest with genuine autonomy under a powerful regional government.

Separatists who have styled themselves as leaders of a newly independent state would be disappointed by the devolution of authority. By the same token, it remains questionable whether Mr. Biya would be willing to relinquish control after forty years of accumulating centralised power. The three years of violence and disorder have been bad for Cameroon and its Anglophone regions. Each escalation, troop deployment and human rights violation has merely exacerbated the conflict. This crisis will only end when the relevant parties are willing to make concessions through real dialogue instead of political performance.

Culled from The Organization For World Peace

When the 87 year dictator President Paul Biya appointed Paul Atanga Nji as Minister of Territorial Administration, it was evidently clear that the onetime respectable African leader has lost everything and his utter ignorance of Cameroonian affairs was on display. And indeed, since then, the shallowness of Biya’s knowledge on the crisis in Southern Cameroons has been exposed further.

Declaring the war against English speaking Cameroonians four years ago and spending millions of US dollars to facilitate the arrest and forced extradition of the Southern Cameroons leader and his senior aides from Abuja to Yaoundé, the whole Francophone decision stands out now as deeply misguided as the crisis has grown.

Even then, the Biya Francophone regime’s obsession with the war in Southern Cameroons was just wrong. As the US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Hon. Tibor Peter Nagy Jr. had explained some times last year during a press conference in Paris, France, that Cameroon should not have gone down that road.

Today, the level of barbarism being perpetuated by the Cameroon government army soldiers supported by armed government militias as they pursue their genocidal war and scorch earth policy to completely annihilate the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) is frightening.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have all estimated that some 20,500 people have been killed, over 282 towns and villages burnt down, some 120,000 people are seeking refuge in Nigeria, over 1million people are internally displaced or living in bushes and 3,000 persons incarcerated in prisons and detention facilities in both French and British Southern Cameroons.

Local human rights groups have also reported that over 4.5. Million people are at risk of famine. Things are growing from bad to worse as the international community is now focused on the outbreak of the coronavirus.

However, one thing we of the Cameroon Concord News Group know for sure is that the 87 year old President Biya of French Cameroun and the Cameroon government army including the private militia sponsored by the regime in Yaounde will be held accountable for these crimes.

President Biya and the consortium of ruling CPDM crime syndicates have resisted all requests by independent humanitarian organizations to visit Southern Cameroons and establish the facts. The coming of the coronavirus is indeed a god-sent opportunity for Mr Biya as international pressure now seems washed away.

Cameroon government health officials have meticulously followed international trends by announcing some few coronavirus cases and reportedly quarantined Air France passengers clearly for PR reasons as just after the Governor of the Littoral Region left the Douala International airport, it was revealed that none of those passengers were detained in any hotel and none had the virus. The Francophone regime has also announced a lockdown of the country while its army soldiers continue to kill innocent Southern Cameroons civilians.

The coronavirus lockdown and Biya’s optimistic statement that compatriots should observe recommended hygiene rules have looked increasingly absurd.  Cameroon has so far reported 7 cases as the virus continue to spread across the globe.

Living permanently in his palace at Mvomeka’a, Biya is wrong about exactly how big the coronavirus crisis could become in Cameroon. What his entire senior health officials picked from his clan have been doing in Yaoundé is simply providing the public with mistaken predictions.  The problem is at 87, Biya seems to misunderstand entirely the nature of the various crises he is facing as head of state and the ways in which his administration has had an excellent backward approach in responding to them.

One of the biggest failings of the Biya administration is that it relies on old and inefficient men and women who are simply struggling to maintain a state apparatus designed to take care of the needs of the head of state, his family and closed collaborators.  This is explains why Southern Cameroonians have opted to pullout of the failed union and set up their own country-the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The outbreak of the coronavirus and all its uncertainties simply provided Biya and his gang another golden opportunity to do what they have always done: lies. Misrepresenting figures and fabricating their own projection of how the number of cases was likely to rise to attract millions of dollars from the World Health Organization. Interestingly, all the coronavirus cases with French passports in Cameroon have been reported as fully recovered.

It seems pretty clear that what the regime in Yaounde has been trying to do with the virus pandemic is to divert attention away from the crimes its soldiers are committing in Southern Cameroons.  But Biya’s words did nothing to calm the Ambazonia Restoration Forces. Biya is simply interested in putting on a happy one and indivisible Cameroonian face than grappling with reality.

Paul Biya is indeed-a Bullshitter-in-Chief

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For French Cameroun barons of the ruling CPDM party, it helps if the Biya regime propaganda is not only delivered by the government spokesman and Minister of Communication but independent analysts, media practitioners, academics, and politicians.

From the very beginning of the Southern Cameroons war, the Biya Francophone regime, assisted by French diplomatic and business interest, has run a very elaborate media battle to portray itself as the victim of an international conspiracy, wherein its only opponents are Boko Haram terrorists from Nigeria and Southern Cameroons separatists who are being used by the Anglophone Cameroon diaspora in Europe, South Africa and United States to destabilize the country.

The most important part of this Biya regime strategic messaging supported by the French government of President Emmanuel Macron is aimed at Europe and the US that are habouring both the Southern Cameroons powerful diaspora and the French Cameroun’s Brigade Anti- Sardinards. They want the USA and Europe to continue to see Biya as the only alternative to stability in the CEMAC region. They constantly say that the West should support the 87 year old.

A war criminal Biya might be, but the ruling CPDM propaganda is telling the world that Biya will continue to protect all Cameroonian minorities – his role in endangering British Southern Cameroonians by starting a sectarian war against the English speaking people and his economic war against the Bamilekes notwithstanding – and that Biya has no immediate plans to turn to China.

For the Francophone dictator and barons of his ruling CPDM crime syndicate, it helps if this propaganda is not only delivered by the Cameroon government spokesman and other cabinet ministers but independent analysts, journalists, academics, and politicians.

Recently, the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji threatened to expel NGOs and media organizations that are reporting to the world the exact situation in Southern Cameroons. The Interior Minister launched a scathing attack on Equinox TV that has so far provided the most balanced and fair coverage of the Cameroon political story accusing the management of haven received 5 billion FCFA from donors abroad.

Correspondingly, the Yaoundé regime’s favourite media houses include Vision 4 TV owned by acolytes of the regime and which specializes in mixing together conspiracy theories, half-truths and outright lies.

The propaganda machinery has successfully put aside the firm position that was adopted earlier by the US ambassador to Cameroon, Peter Henry Barlerin that President Biya should think about his legacy and step aside.

The international community is yet to draw any red line around the killings currently going on in Southern Cameroons and now with the outbreak of the coronavirus, the United States government has no intention of enforcing regime change in Yaounde.

The Biya regime’s propaganda campaign has basically worked as the US Assistant Secretary of State Tibor Peter Nagy Jr. is now expressing misgivings about the Southern Cameroons revolution and Biya’s continued stay in power despite President Trump’s determined efforts to reduce US military and economic support for the corrupt government in Yaounde.

By ignoring the Cameroon government army atrocities in Southern Cameroons and only finding areas of common interest – such as fighting Boko Haram in the Far North of French Cameroun and encouraging democracy (even if such common interests are illusory) – the US State Department is slowly but surely turning its back against the Ambazonian people.

Consequently, the Southern Cameroons Interim Government should and must step up its game and proceed in taking the battle inside French Cameroun.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

As the world races to find a vaccine or a cure for the coronavirus, antimalarial drugs, HIV medications, flu vaccines and arthritis treatments are all being tested. FRANCE 24 takes a look at the latest medical efforts to combat the pandemic.

Teams of scientists across the world are working around the clock to either develop a new drug or repurpose an existing medication to halt the spread of the virus.

Viruses are tiny parasitic bits of genetic material that replicate inside another organism. Vaccines for viruses such as measles are typically made from a weakened form of the virus. But this process can take years.

Scientists are now fast-tracking results and sidestepping normal scientific steps, such as animal testing, to find drugs that will treat and kill the virus that causes COVID-19.

How close are we to a vaccine?

China:

The first country to experience the virus and also the first to start searching for vaccines and cures, China is understandably leading the field in the hunt for a vaccine. On December 31 last year, China alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a port city of 11 million people in Hubei province. The virus was at that point unknown.

To create an original vaccine, the Chinese company Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology is working with a US biotech company called Inovio Pharmaceuticals. They are in the process of developing a “DNA vaccine” called INO-4800.

This vaccine is already in preclinical trial. It involves directly injecting genetic material into a person to trigger a stronger immune response, so they are better equipped to stop an infection.

Japan:

On January 16, Japan became the first country to confirm a coronavirus case outside China.

Fujifilm may be best known for its photographic products, but the Japanese company also makes a drug called Favipiravir (capitalized). This was initially intended to treat new strains of the flu. However, it appears to be proving effective in treating coronavirus patients, particularly those with lighter symptoms.

Europe:

Germany’s BioNTech has been one of the major players in European vaccine developments. It announced on Monday that it is developing an experimental vaccine, working with Fosun Pharma in China. On Tuesday, it confirmed a collaboration with America’s largest pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, to develop the drug outside of China. They hope to be in a position to start testing the new vaccine early next month.

Reuters reported on Sunday that the German government was trying to stop the US administration from persuading CureVac, another German drugmaker working on an experimental vaccine for the coronavirus, to move its research to the United States. This prompted German politicians to insist that no country should have a monopoly on any future vaccine.

Earlier, the Welt am Sonntag German newspaper reported that US President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure CureVac to the United States, and the German government was making counter-offers to tempt it to stay.

Responding to the report, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, wrote on Twitter: “The Welt story was wrong.”

US:

The first human trials of a potential vaccine called mRNA-1273 have already begun in the United States. Their vaccine has been made by biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics.

Four patients received injections of the vaccine at the Kaiser Permanente research facility in Seattle, Washington, the Associated Press news agency reported.

The early-stage study of mRNA-1273 is being carried out by the US National Institutes of Health.

Instead of creating the mRNA-1273 vaccine from the coronavirus, scientists have copied a short segment of genetic code from the virus.

To test this new drug as fast as possible, they have sidestepped normal procedures such as initially testing on animals. The initial trial is expected to involve 45 healthy adult volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55 years over approximately six weeks. It could take 12 months before any concrete results are produced.

How close are we to a cure?

China:

By the end of January, China was already exploring how existing drugs might be repurposed to kill the virus.

One of the first drugs China explored with some success was an antimalarial drug called chloroquine phosphate. Speaking at a press conference on February 18, Sun Yanrong, deputy head of the China National Centre for Biotechnology Development at the ministry of science and technology, said this drug has already been under clinical trial in more than 10 hospitals in Beijing as well as in Guangdong Province and in Hunan Province.

According to Sun, patients treated with chloroquine saw a greater drop in fever, an improvement in their lung scans and required a shorter time to recover compared to parallel groups.

Among other drugs currently being tested in China is a Swiss-made anti-inflammation drug called Tocilizumab that suppresses overreactions by the immune system. 

Another interesting advance has been made with a US antiviral drug called remdesivir, which has had impressive results in tests with more than 200 extremely ill patients.

Remdesivir was developed by Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola patients. It had good results in laboratories and with animals but was less successful with tests out in the field. Nevertheless, global health authorities deem it the most promising of possible treatments for people with severe cases of the virus.

Europe:

French pharmaceutical company Sanofi has announced it is ready to offer millions of doses of an antimalarial drug to French authorities after “promising” initial trials.

Sanofi said it could potentially treat 300,000 COVID-19 patients with the antimalarial drug Plaquenil, a spokesperson for the laboratory told AFP, adding that the group was ready to work with French health authorities “to confirm these results”.

Sanofi and its partner Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc have also started a clinical trial of their rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara as a treatment for the virus, the companies said on Monday.

Testing for patients with mid-to-severe stages of the virus will begin immediately, and the companies anticipate the trial will test up to 400 patients.

United States:

The United States may have had a slow start, but it has now sprinted ahead in the race for a vaccine.

A key development in the battle against the virus has emerged from the Quantitative Biosciences Institute Coronavirus Research Group, based out of the University of California. This team of hundreds of scientists has identified more than 50 drugs already in circulation that may effectively treat people infected with the virus.

The group has taken a different approach from many of their peers. Rather than find drugs that attack the virus itself, they are exploring drugs that will protect the proteins in our own cells that the coronavirus depends on to thrive and reproduce. With this type of treatment, our own systems will fight the virus.

Such a project would typically take a minimum of two years to achieve the results that this working group, which includes 22 laboratories across the US, has managed in a few weeks.

Another major development is the use of the HIV combination treatment lopinavir-ritonavari. This is currently being used in trials in America and other countries across the world, including India.

However, amid all the scientific developments, there are also unfounded rumours. In a statement published on Monday, Johnson & Johnson said there is “no evidence” that its HIV drug Prezista had any effect against the coronavirus in response to unsubstantiated reports that the drug might be a cure.

The company said it was aware that some HIV treatments are being considered as options to treat patients diagnosed with COVID-19.

Johnson & Johnson did say, however, that it was “partnering with multiple organizations to support the development of research programs and fast-track solutions for COVID-19”.

Culled from France 24