Nigeria recently had its first case of the coronavirus, which elicits much worry in regards to how the situation will be dealt with in the case that more get infected. There are many factors that get in the way of dealing with an outbreak, if one occurs in Nigeria.
For starters, the coronavirus is very hard to track. Symptoms typically take five to seven days to appear and the virus spreads very easily. In a country like Nigeria, which has a population of over 204 million, it can spread very easily. It is even more concerning that the first case was identified in Lagos, which is the country’s largest city with a population of 20 million and one of Africa’s biggest metropolises.
Second, Nigeria is dealing with an outbreak of Lassa fever, which is deadlier than the coronavirus. Lassa fever is a severe hemorrhagic fever that occurs during Nigeria’s annual dry season which lasts typically from November to April. Dr. Doyin Odubanjo from the Nigerian Academy of Science explained that, although historically the fever occurs during the dry season, there have been cases during the rainy season as well. The epidemic has spread across half the country and was declared an “active outbreak” by Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control in late January. Nigeria has 36 states, and across 26 of them there had been 774 cases and 132 deaths by the end of the ninth week of the outbreak. The virus is spread through contact with bodily fluids of those infected or food or anything that has been polluted with the urine or feces of a rat. The prior has resulted in healthcare workers getting infected, some dying, which has not helped the issue of lack of professionals in the system.
Lastly, Nigeria’s health care system is very flawed. According to the World Health Organization, the reason Nigeria’s healthcare is insufficient is due to no coordination between public and private areas of the country, low quality work due to commercial pressure, poor work environments, and lack of planning. In addition, the healthcare system typically hires Nigerians only. This is an issue because some foreign treatments could be better than those known only to Nigeria. For example, America has a lot of health technology that Nigeria does not. If the system only focuses on Nigerian techniques, they miss out on what people from more advanced countries could bring.
Although, Nigeria has gained a reputation for dealing with the Ebola outbreak in 2014. In a blog post, John Campbell, a Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., explained that even though Nigeria has a weak medical framework, they were able to contain it to only 20 cases of Ebola, and eight deaths. After the Ebola virus was introduced by a foreigner coming fring From Liberia, the Lagos state and Federal ministries of health were able to move quickly and screen travelers, quarantine those who had the virus and trace any who had come into contact with those infected.
Still, the aforementioned issues make one wonder if Nigeria can handle an outbreak of the coronavirus. They did well with the Ebola outbreak, but the coronavirus is much different than that of Ebola since symptoms are not easily traceable. Also, what if the symptoms of the coronavirus mutate with that of another virus, such as that of the Lassa fever or Ebola? How will the country handle that with their limited healthcare system? All of these concerns should be addressed in the Nigerian health infrastructure. Nigerian officials need to look at better ways to manage and improve their healthcare system in the case that the spread of the coronavirus proves detrimental.
Deborah Afolabi 