COVID-19 on disease control, development and growth of Nigeria
COVID 19 is the pandemic of this generation. Pandemics are often spontaneous, devastating and with landmark lessons. The fear of this pandemic of our time was devastatingly acute, and it has progressed into chronic calamities for a worldwide economic recession. Clearly, COVID 19 pandemic exposed the weakness and not the strength of most nations. In fact it has demystified the presumed powers of some countries.
In disease management, efficiency of responses to outbreaks hinges on early detection, prompt reporting and the integrated response system. COVID 19 pandemic downplayed efficiency and effectiveness of Medicare intervention elements in majority of the countries across the globe. Also, it has shown the ease of losing or winning a war public health among nations.
Those of us in developing nations were amazed by the overwhelming effect of COVID 19 on the Medicare delivery system of the so called advanced nations. However, we cannot be less impressed by their dedication, rapid response, advances in medical equipment and the hospitalization standard. The saving grace for Africa is the favourable epidemiological dynamics of COVID 19 that has failed to aggressively challenge our population and our health care delivery system.
The pandemic status of COVID 19 describes the spread of the disease because it is highly contagious and the whole world is exposed. Relatively, Nigeria and many other countries in Africa cannot be described to be experiencing the rates of spread and deaths from this pandemic. Secondly, looking at the level of compliance of the various measures on containment, we shall be deceiving ourselves to believe that our measures are responsible for the low rate of the infection in the country.
This country has wide ranges of growth and developmental challenges. In the case of responsive disease control strategy, it will be good to picture a case scenario where Nigeria had come down or is hard hit with the pandemic just like what happened in Europe, USA and now in Brazil. Without using this assumption to define our weaknesses, and sincerely begin to be regimentally frontal in providing solutions to resolve our failures, we shall go back to sleep the moment the west hand over the vaccine to us if that becomes the final solution.
Definitely, vaccine trial and production against COVID 19 will be discovered by the West and its allies. Our country, Nigeria will be on the queue lobbying for allocation and support from various donor agencies for free supply. Some smart opportunists amongst us will exploit available channels to make riches. Thereafter, we shall go back to our habitual procrastinating tendencies. Under this our ways, the medical responses of our future will wait for the next pandemic with laxity. Unfortunately, we don’t know when and where the next pandemic will start from, if we successfully escape COVID 19.
In looking into the future, the effect of COVID 19 is multifaceted. At the level of medical security, professional experts should develop a simulation model for an outbreak of pandemic disease like COVID 19 to understand the enormous challenges ahead. However, this article takes a look at our current status and growth indicators to proffer a focus based approach for ramifying responses for growth and development.
Opportunities of COVID 19 outbreaks have gone beyond medicine. It has shown that every household has the ingenuity to produce a facemask. Therefore, COVID 19 is a disease that is of science and technology. It has varying economic opportunities. Also, international politics and diplomacy have been very active. The disease is about strength, focus and the desire to deliver. Therefore, this disease is going to direct the future trend of several events beyond our comprehension on how the world will grow.
In Nigeria, the first line of question is that what is the level of our medical preparedness? This is the crux of interventions on disease control. firstly, our nation will need to deliberately develop an acceptable labour management model based on responsive accountability and team work to stabilize the health profession. This will cater for planning, funding, development and strengthening the requisite capacities for emerging challenges.
Advances and deployment of medical tools were competitively demonstrated in the management of COVID 19 by the western nations. Even the beddings are luxuriant and brilliantly displayed to stimulate healing. Now, what is the current state of production of medical equipment in Nigeria? This is a big question. The clear fact is that engineering sciences and technology have taken over medical precisions. It is making the work of health personnel to be more simplified.
Diagnostic judgment as a guide to treatments regiments is now efficient and improving confidence with advanced tooling. Nigerians travelling abroad for medical vacation or interventions are to have access to equipment and machines in most cases. Of course if we don’t have a particular machine for clinical application locally, how do we develop the requisite expertise? Therefore, this challenge of access to advanced tools and techniques is affecting the quality of our personnel.
The failures of our national research institutes across board are glaring. They are supposed to drive production of capacities and tooling by innovations. If my fact is right, the law establishing various researches institutes in Nigeria is very silent on profit making. Then, how has this law enhanced the commercialization of viable discoveries for economic development? What is the strategy to reach out to investors? The irony is that most research institutes in the country are locked up without commensurate inputs on our development. They are conservatively managed with visible effect of politicization of headship.