Coronavirus outbreak is being taken a bit lightly in Nigeria. This however, does not mean that Nigeria has failed at securing efforts to curb the virus.
The country still has no major outbreak of the virus recently taking the toll to 8 cases while 5 of those cases had recently travelled to the UK and the US. This is however, still under a manageable number but could the toll rise?
Most Nigerians do not believe the virus is as deadly and after the Ebola virus it is a bit harder to make them believe it is but the government has already taken it upon their hands to increase health response activities across the country.
In an interview, one man was quoted saying, “I am not worried at all, because the way we fight Ebola. With that spirit we can flush out coronavirus.”
One of the reasons that Nigerian might not be panicking is because Nigeria is no stranger to disease outbreaks. In 2004, the Ebola virus hit Nigeria’s main town of Lagos and the virus was able to be contained.
Nigeria is taking several measures to make sure the cases of corona do not increase carrying out health screens and tests as soon as they gain entry in to the country. Also, passengers are passing on all their information to authorities by filling in forms even before they come down from the aeroplane.
These form include information like bio data, flight information, health symptoms and lastly a question asking if the person has had any contact with anyone who poses a health risk recently.
This form is later submitted to the health officer after being filled to satisfaction. After that, the passengers, and anyone they have made contact with, will be contacted if any case of the virus is detected on their flight is noted.
Experts warn that despite the virus having very few number of infections in Nigeria and this causing a sense of confidence, it is still at large. And should the virus eventually spread there might not be enough basic facilities and devices like respiratory machines to give the right and proper care to all patients in the country.