Amarachi Okeh

Health experts have urged Nigerians to step up adherence to all the COVID-19 prevention measures, noting that the safety protocols are particularly important in this harmattan season.

The experts explained that the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in recent times is not just due to Omicron, the new variant of the viral infection, but also due to the harmattan season.

According to the experts, viral infections like the COVID-19 spread more during the dry harmattan season.

Recall that the Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa had last week stated that Nigeria had entered the fourth wave of the virus following a 500 per cent increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the two weeks before the statement.

This rise in COVID-19 cases also coincides with the reporting of a new variant of the virus, Omicron while the previously identified variant, Delta still rages.

As of the 30th day of December, the official total number of reported COVID-19 cases by the NCDC stood at 241,513.

Speaking with PUNCH HealthWise, a public health expert, Prof. Amos Bassi while said it is important for the nation to know that the rise of the cases is also linked to the weather.

He noted that there is usually a spike in acute respiratory viruses during the dry season.

Explaining, the professor of Public Health said, “The harmattan season is a description of reduced humidity in the air, increased particles in the atmosphere due to increased north-easterly wind speed.

“To human beings, the body filters like the skin, nostrils, and eyes feel the change. The dryness enables the mucous membranes including the skin to

break down allowing microbes.

“The physical environmental change due to reduced humidity and increased dryness exposes the human body to these biological microbes.”

He noted that this situation is not peculiar to only Nigeria as it is a global phenomenon experienced in other temperate regions. “Globally, it is established that the spike in acute respiratory infections is more during harmattan season in the tropics and winter in temperate regions like Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa.”

Recall that there has been a spike in COVID-19 cases around the world in the last few weeks with Europe and the United States recording surges in cases and deaths.

Also speaking with our correspondent, a pulmonologist, Dr. Olusola Adeyelu explained that the harmattan is dry weather that dries up the airways, noting that due to that, a majority of particles get retained in the body and activate many chemical reactions.

Adeyelu noted that when these chemical reactions are generated in the body, the outcome is a disease because the body has to react.

Speaking further on how the weather impacts the rise of COVID-19 cases, the pulmonologist said harmattan confers an advantage on viruses during this period.

“The harmattan creates temperature imbalance between the airways and the environment and individuals thereby making opportunistic infections like COVID-19 to be up during this period.

He adds, “It does cause disease directly but also confers advantages on viruses making them more virulent from flu to COVID-19 – though COVID is evolving like other viral infections,” he said.

To combat the effects of this virus in this weather, the experts urged that Nigerians drink more water during this season, take daily exercise seriously, and also maintain good nutrition.

They also noted that the call on Nigerians to continue to adhere to the non-pharmaceutical measures to prevent the virus cannot be over-emphasised.



https://healthwise.punchng.com/harmattan-aids-covid-19-spread-experts-warn/

Harmattan is a season

Lolz harmattan, I will like to see the study that he did to arrive at this conclusion.

But it's too late, we dey on flurona variant right now... You guys should rewrite this news.

Common sense. Those that are unVaccinated, what has changed about them? Absolutely nothing. They have the same immune system that they did at the start of all this. The same cannot be said for those that are vaccinated. So who does the virus have to mutate for to infect?….

Definitely not the person with the same immune system.

Virology 101