COVID-19: We ‘ve seen early signs of community transmission – Ehanire

Fred Ezeh, Abuja

The spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nigeria could take a turn for the worse, with the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, disclosing on Thursday that managers of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country have begun to see early signs of community transmission.

The minister, appearing on the Live TVC News programme, said that the lockdown in the Lagos, Ogun and the FCT was the only option left for the country in containing the spread of the virus as it is helping the disease managers to intensify their efforts in detecting and confirming cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

A few weeks ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO), raised the alarm that 12 countries in Africa were now experiencing local transmission of COVID-19, even though the countries were not mentioned.

WHO emphasised that it was crucial for governments to prevent local transmission from evolving into a worst-case scenario of widespread sustained community transmission, insisting that such a scenario could present a major health challenge to countries with weak health systems.

WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, in a statement, urged African leaders to learn from the experiences of countries that have seen a sharp decline in COVID-19 cases through the rapid scaling-up of testing, isolating cases and meticulously tracing contacts.

She said that although Africa has seen a significant increase in confirmed cases recently, there are still fewer cases than cases recorded in other parts of the world.

Dr Moeti thus insisted that understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic evolves in Africa was still a work in progress, and responses would need to be adapted to the African context considering that the demographics of the continent is different from China, Europe and the USA.

“Africa has the world’s youngest population but it appears that older people are more vulnerable to COVID-19. However, preliminary analysis finds that people with underlying conditions are also at higher risk.

“Across Africa, nearly 26 million people are living with HIV. Over 58 million children have stunted growth due to malnutrition. So it is possible that younger people would be more at risk in Africa than in other parts of the world,” Dr Moeti explained.

She maintained that basic preventative measures by individuals and communities remain the most powerful tool to prevent the spread of COVID-19.