Since the beginning of the outbreak of coronavirus across the world, there have been a series of misinformation and fake news around issues related to COVID-19 response in Nigeria. It is no longer news that the country has made gains in its response efforts as it has maintained its level of COVID-19 infection between 100 and 200 cases daily, unlike countries where thousands are infected every day and more lives are lost.
However, to sustain the gains so far and prevent a second wave of infections through appropriate messages and information, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu last week met with media executives where he spoke on major issues on the pandemic response in Nigeria, including testing, infections in schools, vaccines, the second wave outbreak, among others.
Infection in schools
The state of the current outbreak shows that we report 100 to 200 cases a day in the last two months and that data has remained constant. One-third of those cases were reported in Lagos. This means that there is still a lot of transmission happening in Lagos. A lot of the cases are in younger people and there have been school-related cases.
The good thing is that when you have more cases in younger people they have much mild symptoms. A lot of times they are asymptomatic than when it happens in older people.
So age is a risk factor for severe illness. But it is not a risk factor to getting the infection. Anyone can get infected. We really have to protect ourselves.
We are working very hard supporting the state governments because schools are managed by the state governments and the ministry of education.
We don't want to close down schools unless it is extremely necessary. What we are doing is to lockdown schools affected and manage the cases. Our strategies have been successful. For now, the intention of this government is to keep lives and life-saving going. We also do not want to lockdown again, unless it is absolutely necessary because people need to earn a living.
COVID-19 is a big outbreak and may not be the last one that Nigeria will face. We have to continue to prepare for the future.
We are always worried about schools where they are mixed with boarding and day students because the day students will always go back home where they are most likely to live with their parents or grandparents. It is a delicate issue to balance up with. It is always better when it happens in a school with a full boarding facility.
Some European and American countries have already broken out the second wave of epidemics. Now that the situation is still grim, we cannot relax. Schools are very concentrated and vulnerable places, and they must be strictly controlled.