By Emeka OMEIHE
This article is perhaps, one of the most tasking to put together. The reason for this is neither that the necessary materials are hard to access nor the subject matter really difficult to handle.
The challenge relates to the regularly evolving nature of official disclosures on the rate of infection of the subject matter, corona virus (COVID-19) in the country.
The situation has been so dynamic that figures relating to the rate of infection and measures to contain it change hourly.
There is therefore everything to expect that before this article is published, official figures on the infected and related responses would have overshot those captured here. These may impose constraints on some of our conclusions.
Before Tuesday last week, the official figure on those infected was put at three. But by the following day’s afternoon, it went up to eight with the discovery of additional five infected victims. And by Thursday, the figure had gone up to 12.
The figures increase as more samples are subjected to laboratory tests. Given the disclosure that about 1,300 people who flew in the same planes with the victims of COVID-19 or had contacts with them after disembarkation are still being traced, the figures are bound to escalate.
And as these people are traced, there are further fears they may have had further contacts with other people wherever they may be.
The implication is that we may be actually contending with a higher number of the infected than is readily available to official sources. The porosity of our land borders does not leave any one in comfort that the army of those regularly crossing through unmanned bush paths have not put the nation in further harm’s way.
It is to obviate the inherent dangers of unchecked influx of foreigner given the raging pandemic that the Senate called on President Buhari to immediately address the nation on the challenge and close all the international airports in the country except those of Lagos and Abuja.
This has now been done. Apparently, the exclusion of Lagos and Abuja international airports was informed by the thinking that they have facilities for screening travelers.
Similar calls for the closure of our land borders have come from some other quarters. Those who made such calls are mindful of the reality that the country may not be able to cope with the challenges of a sudden exponential rise in Covid-19 infections given the decrepit state of our health facilities and tepid handling of the few cases before us.
By the time the index case was reported, the nation was not prepared to handle the case despite what we knew of the pandemic and the fast manner it was spreading across the world.
The same lack of preparedness was manifest in the handling of the case of the woman who returned from the UK and admitted at the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital ESUTH-TH on suspicion of the virus infection.
Though the woman eventually tested negative, she unfortunately lost her life in circumstance her family is blaming on the negligent way she was treated by hospital staff.
They claimed she was abandoned and stigmatized and this contributed to her death. But the hospital said in its defense that nothing of such happened.
They claimed before the woman was brought to them, she had been rejected by the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital UNTH and that they withheld information that she just returned from the UK after their previous encounter.
The intention is not to delve into the veracity or otherwise of the allegations, but one issue that seemed to have emerged from the altercation is the unpreparedness of our health institutions for the challenge of the corona virus.
Lack of capacity to handle the disease is the reason for the abandonment and stigmatization of victims even when their status is yet to be confirmed. That appears to be the point the family of the woman that died in Enugu made especially since she had no such virus.
As countries that had early contact with the disease rolled out measures to contain its spread, our leaders trudged on as if we are immune to it even when its mode of transmission should forewarn that proactive measures be taken to contain any eventuality. Of late, we are beginning to come to terms with that reality.
It is increasingly dawning on us that we may have more case of the infection than official sources have admitted.
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In the absence of the tracing of the large number of those who had contacts with the recorded victims, there is everything to expect that the number would be much higher. We have also heard of the difficulty in tracing some of these persons due to wrong addresses and phone numbers supplied.
These are avenues for further complications. Who knows how many of such untraced contacts would have contacted the virus and how many new people at their paces of residence or work would have come into further contact with the disease?
The Federal government has come out with measures including placing 15 countries where the pandemic is most prevalent on travel ban. It also banned officials from travelling to countries prone to the ailment. Though steps in the right direction but they came belatedly. There was no point waiting for the affected to infiltrate our shores before the ban.
All those who tested positive to the virus came from abroad, some of them foreign nationals. Perhaps, a more proactive handling of the matter would have insulated the country from the current panic arising from the speed with which the virus is infiltrating our shores.
The World Health Organization (WHO) painted a sordid picture of the scourge when it revealed last Thursday that 17 deaths arising from the virus were recorded in Africa within 24 hours. This disclosure is frightening given that Africa trailed last in the list of continents to report cases of the virus.
It is however, heart-warming that many state governments have now embarked on measures to check the spread. Apart from the closure of schools in the north-west, Kwara, Anambra, Lagos and some other states, limits have also been imposed on gatherings both for religious and other purposes.
In both Lagos and Ogun states where a majority of the cases have been reported, religious gathering has been limited to 50 persons.
Health advisory on how to contain the scourge should be stepped up in schools, markets, parks, work places and other avenues of public contact. But we have not seen commensurate steps to set up specialized health centers around the country in anticipation of a rise in infections.
Though the minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire tried to reassure on the existence of facilities to contain any sudden rise in the number of those afflicted, the facilities listed appear insufficient given the burgeoning population of the country.
He said the Lagos Infectious Diseases Hospital has 100 standard bed spaces with provision for expansion and that the Abuja Teaching Hospital has 12 bed spaces. These appear grossly inadequate.
We have also heard that there are fall back provisions even as some teaching and general hospitals have been told to make beds available at short notices and train doctors and nurses for the purpose.
It serves no useful purpose talking in such general and vague terms. What Nigerians expect of their leaders at this crucial moment is a comprehensive list of health facilities available around them that they should report suspected cases of the virus.
We should go beyond putting some health workers on alert to procuring the attendant facilities that will lead to effective management of cases.
This will reduce the confusion arising from lack of information on where to take patients and the attendant stigmatization and possible death as patients run from one hospital to another in search of expert treatment. Governments must take the pandemic very seriously as its reality is here with us.
The way we handle the matter has serious repercussions for our people especially given the ever growing population, debilitating poverty and the inability of a majority of our people to access the basic needs of life.
It will be interesting to see how a very dependent country will live in isolation in the days ahead. There may be lessons to learn.
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