COVID-19 Nigeria by Mories Atoki & Georgios Radoglou

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Doctors protest poor conditions and health infrastructureFollowing the expose of neglect and decadence by COVID-19’s illumination of the sector, it becomes obvious that by farnot enough has been done and, to correct the narrative, an emergency of national proportions must be declaredespecially, putting the public and private health sector to the top of national priorities and political agenda and consequentlyaddress the deficits with a national joint effort.While the current pandemic has revealed its intention of staying around for a long time, th e ugly reality of the immediatepast of our battles with ill-health on multiple fronts including communicable diseases (CDs), non-communicable diseases(NCDs), tropical diseases (TDs) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) keeps haunting us.COVID-19 is ‘just another day’ as the saying goes, proofs to be a trap that has mislead many parts of the Globe. COVID-19 is a globally spread aggressive pandemic and shall not be compared to an epidemic which is regionally contained. Whilemany stakeholders consider this pandemic a turning point for the country using the Ebola crisis as a point of reference, it isimportant to layer the dynamics of both situations.The outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease began in Guinea in December 2013 and quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone,causing devastation in all three countries. Nigeria responded quickly enough by putting measures in place to ensure itscitizen’s safety. Despite the measures, the country recorded its first EVD case in the form of a Liberian diplomat who, awareof his infectious status, circumvented the safety measures to enter the country before ending up in a hospital where theforesight of medical personnel there and their subsequent sacrifice successfully contained the virus in Nigeria.A total of nineteen (19) Nigerians lost their lives to the virus– most of them medical personnel of the hospital wherepatient zero was quarantined – and the country wascelebrated for its response. However, there are many whobelieved the government was taking undue credit andhyping its capacity to deal with particular problems even ifthere is political commitment to mobilize the country andCOVD-19 seems to bear them out.Consider the measures government put in place to stopthe Coronavirus getting into the country. Reminiscent ofEbola times, reluctantly screening was set up at theairports but for many, it was clear that the government hadnot updated or even upgraded its pandemic responseplaybook – there was no increase in the number ofscreening machines and procedures to track passengerafter passing through immigration were not effective,Passengers being screened at an airport in Lagos
airports continued to operate, receiving flights from countries already hard hit by the pandemic while land and sea borderscontinued to function with little or no screening or safety checks.When the country started to see infections and the attendant rise in cases and subsequently deaths, several guidelineswere issued including ones stating that private hospitals would not be allowed to treat suspected infected cases and thatbodies of COVID-19 fatalities would not be released to their families for burial but these guidelines were flouted withimpunity.Security agencies enforcing the lockdown in LagosBusiness as usual after lockdown ease in LagosThen the lockdown was enforced initially in three Federal states – Abuja, Lagos and Ogun – before the national extensionduring which citizens, most of whom depended on the daily revenue generated from an informal economy, were forced toendure hunger. Insecurity rose as people came to terms with the desperation to survive. Security agencies, seeminglyinterested only in enforcing the lockdown, were complicit in the assault and even murder of suffering, innocent citizens whilegangs of hungry youths, armed with primitive weapons, freely harassed communities forcing residents to seek selfprotection.Now that the lockdown is over and a curfew imposed nationally, cases have leaped and as at May 31, Nigeria has officiallyover 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and reached 300 COVID-19 related fatalities (vs. 19 from Ebola in 2014). But letus not be cheating ourselves and admit that all of us feel that there is a grey zone based on very low number of testscompared to the total population and there are deaths, like those in Kano, which disregarding the WHO committee jointlyinvestigating them with NCDC and attributing them to COVID-19, not being accounted for in the National statistics. Whenthe COVID-19 cases began in March and the statistics showed a flat curve, Nigeria would show the same correlationbetween number of tests and identified COVID-19 infection cases as the rest of the world, being 8-9%. Meanwhile andespecially after loosening the lockdown after May 6 th this percentage grew to reach almost 20%. This is a significant indicatorfor the ongoing crisis and when projected to the total Nigerian population creates shock and awe for a potentially catastrophicreal situation. COVID-19 cannot be controlled and Nigeria must put up guards to learn to live with it whilst mitigating itsimpact.The difficult situation today could have been prevented, but given the potential of COVID-19 to generate subsequentinfection waves, Nigeria needs to prepare for a “continual management” of the disease and the way forward needs to includeamongst many measures:one – to put in place effective measures to guarantee food security which, while already a main challenge pre- and duringthe pandemic, if achieved would contribute to a mitigation in consequences of the diseases spread and impact;two – to place priority on extensive rapid response testing focusing on extent, speed and quality in relation to the population.As at the end of May, Nigeria had tested only about 50,000 citizens in a population of almost 200 million;three – to ensure the continual protection of exposed professional groups with the provision of PPE, clear orders to securityagencies on the exemption of those providing essential services from movement restrictions and adequate financialprovisions to cater for hazards;four, to achieve national unity in dealing with the virus especially amongst political and traditional office holders whosediscordant tunes could have the effect of hampering control and mitigation measures;five, to source transparent and accurate data on the country’s population, health statistics and the vulnerable; andsix, to engage the private sector in a way that resources would be coalesced and optimized to improve health systemsacross the country with a post-pandemic outlook.
Page 1 and 2: Mories AtokiCEO ABCHealthGeorgios R
Page 3: Graph above: Nigeria Healthcare spe
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COVID-19 Nigeria by Mories Atoki & Georgios Radoglou

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