[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s at today, over sixty cases of corona virus have been reported in Nigeria. So, the country is safe, it can be contained. So it appears.

That’s when you have not taken into consideration the fact that of the last few cases reported, one was meant to be a traveler who arrived on a British Airways (BA) flight during the week. Sadly, none of the 186 or so passengers plus crew members was tested for the virus on arrival, nor isolated, nor quarantined. That means that a number of probably infected passengers are on the loose, unidentified and making contact with several hundreds who are in turn having contacts with several other thousands.

The above scenario applies just to the case of the BA flight. Presumably, this could be the case with several other flights that arrived from the Europe, China, the USA and other majorly exposed countries in the last two weeks. In a country of 200million people, ill prepared for a major pandemic occurrence with poor access to quality healthcare and little resources both financial and human to grapple with the problem, that is scary!

Yet it seems that the country is doing well in containing the spread of the virus: temperatures are taken of passengers that arrive at the airport; hand sanitizers are available for personal hygiene and this measures are extended to many public places across the country. But Covid-19 is not like Ebola: carriers are usually asymptomatic for weeks before falling  sick; a greater percentage don’t even fall sick. The danger is that within weeks, the asymptomatic persons have the potential of spreading the virus widely.

As I write, chances are that several thousands are now carrying the virus without knowing it. So for Nigeria, COVID-19 potentially is a pandemic on the fast lane.

So what could the country have done better to stop COVID-19 from a wild spread? For long, authorities left the borders open without taking preemptive control measures. Many airlines kept flying to badly exposed countries like China, South Korea and Europe without measures taken to ensure that the passengers and crew observe self-isolation or are quarantined for a given period of time under close monitoring. Many have argued that Nigeria should have banned flights in and out of the pandemic countries at the early start of the virus outbreak.  Although this measure has just been taken of late, it does seem to be too late in coming. The awaiting calamity can still be mitigated if the country puts in place some more measures to contain a possible outbreak. Apart from closing the boarders for a given period, other measures to put in place include:

•             Acquiring test-kits in their numbers and opening up more test centers (currently, there are only 3 in the whole country) by partnering with many hospitals to be able to test suspected cases on a massive scale;

•             Effective collaboration between Federal, State and Local authorities to take active control in leading efforts at preventing further spread, including:

•             Closing down schools,

•             Clearly defining essential services and activities and enforcing restrictions; in particular,  ensuring social distancing and minimizing gatherings with large numbers and banning meetings with more than 20 attendees.

•             Active collaboration with the global community especially development agencies in the effort at developing a vaccine.

•             Driving collaboration between the NCDC and the domestic pharmaceutical industry to ramp up the roll of test kits and capabilities. This should be given important consideration as part of developing local capacities to deal with the pandemic.

•             Prior to eventual lockdown, which seems inevitable, public buildings, businesses, shopping malls, supermarkets, pharmacies, etc, should be strongly advised and enforcements put in place as part of the containment measures, to ensure that they not only provide hand sanitizers at entrances and other strategic locations, but also undertake to regularly clean and disinfect surfaces, such as counters, elevator panels, hand rails, ATMs, POS terminals, etc that customers frequently touch or handle.

• Federal, State and Local Governments to take effective action to ensure that hospitals and isolation centres are expended and fully resourced and medical personal are duly prepped and remunerated for the eventualities.

Perhaps, the most important action that should be taken will be for the country to better coordinate the information dissemination, including in local languages, for more effective public awareness on COVID-19 and ways of preventing the spread.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a high possibility of the Covid-19 virus being transmitted sexually, the minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, has said. Mr Ehanire, addressing an emergency press briefing in Abuja on Thursday, said he believed that “if a person is positive, the virus can be transmitted sexually.”

This is, however, subject to scientific testing as the Covid-19 is a new disease and a lot of research is ongoing on the pattern of transmission of the disease.

However, some scientists have claimed that the virus cannot be transmitted through sexual intercourse except via oral sex.

A scientist, Jessica Justman, who spoke with The Guardian UK, said they are not seeing patterns that indicate sexual transmission.

She, however, advised that when a partner is a Covid-19 case, it is better to steer clear of each other as much as possible.

Transmission

It has, however, been proven that Covid-19 can be transmitted from person to person and primarily spread through respiratory droplets. Touching contaminated surfaces is thought to be the secondary mode of transmission.

This is one of the reasons why the World Health Organisation and health experts have been campaigning that people should always wash their hands with soap and water as much as possible and when that is not possible, the use of sanitizer is advised.

The UN health agency advised frequent handwashing with soap under running water or using an alcohol-based sanitiser.

It also said that people should avoid crowds, large gatherings and needless physical contact and to always clean surfaces frequently with disinfectants

Face mask

Also, Mr Ehanire said it is not everyone that has to wear a face mask. He said this action will affect supplies for medical personnel. Since the onset of the outbreak in Nigeria, many Nigerians have been wearing face masks in an attempt to prevent contracting the virus.

However, Mr Ehanire said if the face masks were for everyone, “Jack Ma will have had to donate 200 million masks.”