By Dr. Hamisu Adamu Dandajeh
In this trying time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the intellectual community in Nigeria has a huge role to play in creating massive awareness and sensitization against the rapid spread of the virus. We live in a superbly interconnected society in which the action or inaction of one of us could affect all of us. We socially interact with one another on events and trading, and we also transact using physical local currencies. These are avenues where the virus can easily spread. It is understandable when some people dismiss your advice on the ways to limit the spread of the Corona Virus due to either ignorance or their dogmatic belief that the virus is a conspiracy of the West against Africans, you don’t have to stop the good course you have taken because their inactions can either directly or indirectly affect you. In fact, the virus is real, and the western countries are currently the worst hit. Africans, therefore, are not immune to it. For example, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) situation report of 19th March 2020, there were 234, 073 confirmed cases globally with 9840 deaths, out of which 44.7% of the confirmed cases and 49.8% of the total deaths are in Europe. If these statistics are something to go by, I wonder why these countries will conspire against themselves!
While we all pray to Almighty Allah to protect us, we should also adhere to the strict medical guidelines of maintaining good hygiene. Mitigation strategies such as restricting flights from hotspot countries, social distancing, the closing of schools, limiting religious/social events and self-isolation have been shown to drastically limit the spread of the virus. These are inconveniences we must endure for the meantime for us to stay alive and it is also the least we can do since no vaccine is available yet. In fact, epidemiological studies carried out by researchers from Imperial College London (ICL) in the United Kingdom have shown that these mitigation strategies will reduce the viral spread by 67%.
Another strategy that was recommended by the ICL studies to completely crush the virus is the suppression approach. The approach calls for a more sustained social distancing on the whole population while schools and events centers are closed for at least 5months. This was the same approach taken by China a few months ago and they have reported no new case in the last few days. The economic consequences associated with this strategy, as seen in China, are enormously high, which may not be easily surmountable for us in Nigeria.
In the time that countries like the United State with privileged information on the virus did not take mitigation and suppression strategies early on and they are now paying the price of their inactions with the rise in the daily death toll. The Singaporean government has on the other hand taken serious proactive suppression measures, and no one has died of the COVID-19 so far.
The Nigerian case of handling the spread of the COVID-19 will be highly challenging and it requires all of us to be honest and decisive. Anyone with clear symptoms of the virus, especially those that returned from the hotspot countries within the last two weeks, must make themselves available for testing. Case tracking of those that came in contact with the confirmed cases should also be prioritized. Nigeria currently has inadequate medical facilities and few isolations and testing centers and with the 22 current cases already in the country, we can’t afford to escalate these numbers further to overwhelm our medical personnel. While we try not to engage in panic buying and spread of fake news on the virus, we should also be mentally alert on the unfortunate events that may unfold in subsequent weeks.
If you are able to read and understand this message clearly, then you have a responsibility to share it with others that may not have the privileged information.
May Almighty Allah continue to protect us, Ameen.
Dr. Hamisu Adamu Dandajeh is a lecturer at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria and presently a teaching fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sky Daily
