Stephen Adoga
The health of a nation is the wealth of a Nation while the ill-health of a nation is the Death of a nation.
On February 27th, 2020, Prof. Osagie Ehanire, the Nigerian minister of health, sat in front of the cameras and announced the arrival of Coronavirus on the Nigerian soil; an announcement which caused the whole nation serious concern. And while the eyes of Nigerians remained glued to television screen as the press conference was being aired live, the smoke of fear and uncertainty filled the air, almost overriding the assuring words of the presidential task force that the nation was well prepared for the inevitable pandemic that just hit.
The virus whose origin continued to be linked to Wuhan, China, ferried itself to Lagos through an unnamed Italian, who possibly infected others before he was found to have tested positive for the virus and was equally quarantined for treatment. Prior to the detection of the virus in Nigeria, The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) with support from its partners began preparedness activities for isolation and containment.
The NCDC began working with state governments and hospitals to map out and establish isolation and treatment centres for managing COVID-19 cases. In addition to this, NCDC began training health workers across all states on case management, infection prevention control (IPC), surveillance, risk communication and other areas of epidemic preparedness and response. The agency also began to preposition medical supplies such as personal protective equipment (PPE) to all states. Importantly, NCDC developed preparedness guidelines and plans that incorporated an all-inclusive ‘One Health’ approach.
Despite the ‘One Health’ approach adopted by the authority charged with ensuring the health of the citizens is protected, as different prevention protocols were deployed to limit transmission, infections and deaths have continue to surge, especially in this second wave of the pandemic.
As of February 28, 2021, the amount of positive coronavirus tests surged by 240 in Nigeria, reaching 155,657 cases in total. On the same date, 1,907 deaths were recorded, with133.8 thousand recoveries in the country.
According to a research commissioned by The Pan African Medical Journal, on Population risk factors for COVID-19 deaths in Nigeria at sub-national level, it was revealed that the incidence of confirmed COVID-19 cases differed widely across the 37 States, from 0.09 per 100,000 in Kogi to 83.7 in Lagos. Nonetheless, more than 70% of confirmed cases were concentrated in just 7 States: Lagos, Abuja, Oyo, Kano, Edo, Rivers and Delta. Case mortality rate (CMR) also varied considerably, with Lagos, Abuja and Edo having CMR above 9 per million populations.
With the 4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine received yesterday, and a fraction of the 16 million doses to be delivered in batches over the next months by the COVAX facility, the surge in infection and death rate is expected to reduce, if the vaccination is extended to more people, especially in the states with high confirmed cases like Lagos, Benin, Kano and Abuja. Nigeria, a country of about 200 million people, plans to vaccinate 70% of its people. This estimated population should be enough to achieve herd immunity in the country.
The President and Vice President and other top hierarchy of the Government are the first to receive the vaccine starting from 6th March, 2020.
It is estimated that 40% will be vaccinated in 2021, and another 30% in the coming year. Nigeria, in the planning, expects about 25% of the vaccines to be donations.
Nigeria is ranked sixth on the list of African countries with most registered cases. As at the time of writing this report, the highest daily increase in cases in Nigeria since the beginning of the pandemic remains January 23. At this point, Nigeria looks to be in a better place with regards to COVID vaccinations than it was a few months ago when no planning was made and only rumours of inoculating with the locally made variant endured.