What Nigeria could learn from other countries on tackling COVID-19
The number of coronavirus cases in the country has been rising by the day. Over 11 states have been hit by the virus with Lagos and Abuja recording the highest number of cases.
The federal government has closed schools and ordered a lockdown in some states. It said more measures could be taken as the situation evolves.
Some countries were in this situation weeks or months earlier and were able to adopt protocols and measures to reduce spread or contain it. Scientists are also learning more about the virus and making useful findings daily. Nigeria can draw lessons from what they did differently to maintain low infection rates and protect their citizens.
The country could learn from these three countries, Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan which, despite their close proximity to China, were able to minimise the spread of COVID-19 in their domains. They took stiff measures early enough.
Nigeria could also learn from clinical protocols from China which though was earlier an epicenter of the virus has gradually begun to witness reduced infection rates.
Experts said these countries, recognised the threat of the virus from the outset, aggressively tested suspected cases and tracked potential new infections.
Most of the world took a watchand-wait approach, but not Vietnam, an infectious diseases researcher and epidemiologist with Expert Stewardship Incorporation in Newport Beach, California Ravina Kullar, told Medical Xpress.
“They actually started preparing for this on Dec 31. They were testing on Dec., 31. They were proactive, and that I think is a key to preventing epidemics. They were overly cautious, and that really benefited the country,” he stated.
He said, Vietnamese government officials also began hosting press conferences at least once a day, where they supplied honest and forthright information about the status of the coronavirus, adding that they were very open and honest with the citizens of Vietnam, and that really served them well.
“There have been just 153 confirmed cases in Vietnam, which has a population of more than 96 million, according to John Hopkins coronavirus tracking.
He added that lack of testing in other countries has led to the widespread implementation of authoritarian measures like lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
“If you don’t have the diagnostic testing capacity, there may be a tendency to use very blunt tools like shelter-in-place orders, because you don’t know where the cases are and where they aren’t,” he said.
A medical practitioner, Dr Ibrahim
Kwaifa, said the countries that succeeded in minimising the spread of COVID-19 were able to do so because they tackled it on time. He said they trained people, built hospitals, isolation centres, used their face masks, practiced regular hand washing and also made use of their hand sanitisers.
“These are what we neglected from the beginning,” he said.
He said, the way to curtail the disease in Nigeria, first and foremost, was to educate the people on the ways the virus spreads because many people still believed it was propaganda.
“Let us get the message across to people from all available channels and through the social media. The virus is real and it is already here. Social distancing is the key and people should not mingle the way we are used to.”
He said those that have the symptoms should also be identified and isolated and those that have confirmed cases should be quarantined in appropriate centres, adding that we should also develop capacity as a country and improve our hospitals.
“We lack capacity in Nigeria; we need ventilators and isolation wards in hospitals. China was able to build a 2000 bed capacity hospital within three days and they locked down the whole country. Though it is difficult because people have to go out every day to fend for their families, but it helped.
“We can practice social distances and regular hand washing. If you don’t have access to water, use your face mask to protect yourself and others around you. We need to know this,” Dr Kwaifa said.
The minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, recently said government was tracking 4,370 people of interest with regards to the coronavirus pandemic.
Medical experts said had measures been taken early enough, this wouldn’t have been the case. They said such large numbers for contract tracing wouldn’t have arisen if the lockdown of the airports against international flights had not come in a bit late. They said the virus itself wouldn’t have been imported into the country if measures were taken early enough.
Another medical expert, Dr William Udeme, said having so many people who had contact with positive cases of COVID-19 in the country was a large number, and dangerous for the country.
He said had effective screening started from the airport from the beginning, the number wouldn’t have risen to the present level.
“The danger is they will infect others if they too have been infected. The only solution is to get these contact persons, get them tested and if there are positive cases, get them treated to avoid continuous spreading.”
A public health expert, Dr Olajide Adebola, said the inability to get these contact persons may likely spread the virus in the next one week, adding that the earlier government took measures to trace them, test, isolate and treat them if need be, the better for the health system of the country.
Dr Adebola said, there were concerns about community spread and that would be really challenging with the country’s weak health care system.
Dr Ifeanyichukwu Casmir, national publicity secretary of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (ALMSN) said screening for coronavirus at the airports in the country was not properly done even before the outbreak in the country. He said if the country had upscaled screening for the virus, the index case would have been detected at the airport when he arrived the country.
Dr Kwaifa said the lockdown being implemented in three states of the country came a bit late, adding that it would have been done earlier. “Even before we recorded any case, we should have closed our borders - both air and land. Anybody coming into the country would have been quarantined but it is still redeemable if we can build capacity. But it takes a lot of money and the will power lies on the side of the people that govern us.
“We need ventilators and medical doctors. With a population of 200 million how many doctors do we have? It is only Lagos State that took a proactive measure and it is commendable.”
He advised the public against mingling but to observe social distancing, saying the virus was highly infectious.
Kullar, diseases researcher and epidemiologist, said South Korea initiated a system of patient “phone booths” to help people get quickly and safely tested for COVID-19.
“One person at a time can enter one side of this glass-walled booth, they grab a handset, and they are connected with a hospital worker standing on the other side of the glass. Using a pair of rubber gloves set into the wall, the health care worker can swab the patient without potentially exposing themselves to the virus.
“The hospital is able to tell the patient their results within seven minutes. We don’t have anything like that at all. They had this quickly put in place in most hospitals to get patients swabbed in a way where you don’t have direct contact with a health care worker.”
A country of 50 million, South Korea currently has 9,241 confirmed cases of COVID-19. While cases continue to climb there, they have done so with a much more gradual slope in March after a steep spike in February.
South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan all learned lessons from the 2003 SARS epidemic and built up their public health infrastructure to be able to immediately respond to future crises, experts said.
Just 81 miles from mainland China, Taiwan had every reason to become a hotbed of COVID-19 activity. There’s a regular and steady flow of population between the island and China.
But there have only been 252 confirmed cases among the island’s 23 million citizens.
According to Asia Times , as with Vietnam, Taiwan began screening passengers flying in from Wuhan as early as Dec. 31.
The island expanded its screening within a week to include anyone who recently traveled to either Wuhan or the Hubei province in which the city is located.
Taiwan also instituted border controls, quarantine orders and school closures, and set up a command centre for quick communication between local governments and their citizens.
Public health measures like quick testing and contact tracing need to be in place and ready to go by the time states start to lift their lockdowns,
The experience in Taiwan and South Korea show that democracies can respond effectively to an epidemic and China, with its totalitarian regime, has seen no new cases of local spread in almost a week.
Some clinical protocols that worked in China include: quick isolation and prompt treatment of cases in designated centres, disinfection of cities, houses, places of worship, enforcement of face mask on the population and lockdown of cities with community transmission among others.