Cases of COVID-19 are rising in Nigeria. Although the federal government hasn’t announced a firm plan to lock down, individual states have started to take steps such as closing markets, schools and places of worship. Accompanying daily developments has been a rise in panic levels fuelled in many cases by misinformation. The Conversation Africa’s West Africa regional editor, Adejuwon Soyinka, put questions to Dr Doyin Odubanjo about the biggest threats to Nigeria’s war against the pandemic.

HOW much of a threat is misinformation and panic in Nigeria?

Perhaps the biggest danger faced at the moment is panic. To control diseases such as COVID-19, it is critical that human behaviour is controlled in a way that inhibits the spread of the disease. The challenge with panic is that people change their behaviour erratically. They might even behave in a way that leads to the disease spreading, or poses a different risk entirely to them and their communities.

Misinformation can lead to panic. In fact it does more than create panic. It can lead to wrong actions. We have already seen people come down with chloroquine toxicity in this pandemic when they heard the drug might be effective.



Read more:
Could chloroquine treat coronavirus? 5 questions answered about a promising, problematic and unproven use for an antimalarial drug


Misinformation can also lead to complacency. There are people who believe that black people can’t have the COVID-19 infection.

Given the current situation, what are the biggest threats?

Right now, I would say the biggest threats are panic, politics and indecision. While COVID-19 is a serious disease and we should tackle it as such, we must do so with calmness and focus. We should never forget that, if the situation is handled right, most people are not expected to die.

But that’s also the tricky nature of the disease. Most people will be asymptomatic or with mild illness. But they will nevertheless pose a great risk to those who are more susceptible to severe disease and death – the elderly and those with other underlying diseases.

There are already more people dead and dying from other diseases. But COVID-19 has gained notoriety to such an extent that it cannot be ignored. Panic leads to knee-jerk responses that are not likely to effectively curtail the spread of the disease.

Rather, what is needed is the calm implementation of a clear and effective strategy.

Politics should have some boundaries. One such boundary is the containment of a pandemic. This is no time to make promises that are not immediately fulfilled. I was alarmed at the disparity between the public statements about Nigeria’s preparedness and the reality on the ground as revealed by ordinary people. An example is the accounts given by people who passed through Nigeria’s airports before they were shut down. While the politicians talked about money that had been assigned, two weeks later the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said that no money had been released .

Lastly, we need to know that not making a decision is a decision itself. The rate at which this disease has spread has shown that we must be thinking on our feet. There is no time to waste. We must think, act, think again, and act again. We must be ready to make hard decisions if the situation requires it.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/the-biggest-threats-to-nigeria-managing-covid-19-panic-politics-and-indecision/

NCDC is under reporting these cases

Kaduna minister said they had new cases but when NCDC reported yesterday it didn't reflect

corruption even NCDC

well

I won't say a word

Problem looming, God please we've suffered enough already don't allow what America,UK, france Spain and Italy are struggling with to happen to us, our own death toll will be alarming

That NDDC is corrupt .under reporting .we have at least 10,000 infected people in Nigerian

Too bad

Some people need proper education. How can they be visiting a primary contact of a CoronaVirus patient that just died in the name of condolence visits. What faster way can one be infected.

The medics in UITH greatly messed up, they sud have reasoned the man cud have been infected with the extent of the outbreak in the country already. Someone that arrived from the UK for that matter.

Imagine what cud have happened if the medics that discovered the Italian man in Ogun were this careless....Gosh!!!!


Why won't they have testing center/kits sef in this kinda situation?
So ridiculous!!!!!

ukukaegbu:
Too bad

Some people need proper education. How can they be visiting a primary contact of a CoronaVirus patient that just died in the name of condolence visits. What faster way can one be infected.

They were not aware

Let's hope Ilorin won't be the epicenter of this disease due to the recklessness of this couple and the UITH staff

If this is true, then Kwara State is in big trouble!

See how Coro just turned affluent children to orphans overnight.

Another implication of this is that the death rate in Nigeria is not as low as presumed. At 7 deaths per 250 confirmed cases, that's about 2.9% death rate which is higher than that of Germany (1.9%), Turkey (2.1%), Australia, Norway, Canada and even Japan. It means that if we have up to 10,000 cases, we'd be talking about 290 people dead.

The FG should as a matter of fact take this situation more seriously and increase testing and contact tracing and containment measures.