In an interview with Sun Newspaper, the NMA president noted that because of the breakdown of the lockdown, an infected person moving freely can infect as much as 15 persons in a day.
What are the implications of the breakdown of the lockdown over COVID-19 in Lagos and other states?
The implications of not following the lockdown is farfetched, and I can tell you that it is going to affect our containment efforts of COVID-19, because right now, it is in community transmission and for us to guard against community transmission, those people who are infected are expected to stay so that they can do their tests and get them isolated so that they would stop infecting other people.
The moment they start moving all around, there are higher chances that they would infect other people, and what usually happens at the end, is that in a single day, one infected person, if he is moving around can infect as much as ten or 15 people.
The implication is that we may not be able to stop or contain or curtail the transmission of this COVID-19 among the community. For the lockdown to be effective, it has to be complemented by mass testing and also isolating those who are positive; that is testing and isolation. If we do not have those ones actively, the lockdown is of no effect.
Why are the cases increasing day in day out?
The cases will start increasing because we are having community transmission. The initial cases we had were those who imported it into Nigeria, but now that they have infected us and we have started infecting ourselves; the rate of infection when it is community will be higher, and it is actually going to be exponential in relation to when it was one person, who has travelled outside this country and is having few contacts around him.
If we have been able to get all the contacts, and we were able to isolate them and debar them from infecting other people, we would have been saved, but now that it is in community, and you cannot hold the community people not to interact, then it makes it obvious that we have higher number of the infection and it is going to be explosive if we do not take very stringent measures toward containing the transmission.
Against the scenario you have just painted, what are your fears?
I’m hoping we will not get to an alarming number of those who are infected. It has already gone into community transmission in the two most populous states in the nation, Kano and Lagos, and here, we have so many slums, and so many places that may be prove very difficult to ensure social distancing, which has been the most effective way of containing the COVID-19 infection.
I can tell you if we have a full-blown transmission, Nigerian health system will be seriously challenged. I’m having a very palpable fear, and I just hope that we will be able to quickly contain it, as it were.
Can you guess the number of Nigerians that have been infected?
It is difficult for us to guess because if you look at the rate of testing, you will see that we are far behind in the number of tested people against the population of Nigeria. For example, Lagos is estimated to be 20 million people and Kano is estimated to be about 25 million people, so the two states are estimated to be about 45 million people, and we have tested just ten thousand, then you see the grave difference , and I can tell you that based on the number we have, we may have that number more than four times in the community, and unfortunately, we are having a lot of those who are sick, who are not ready to come out to be tested for fear of stigmatisation, this is very dangerous for the populace.
Only about 10,000 people have been tested in a population of about 200 million people, why?
It is because of the availability and the capacity of the testing methods. When they started, they just had one or two areas where tests could be carried out, but now they are increasing it. It has been very minimum number that they can test in a day.
They say they can take in some places 1,500 tests per day and in some places one thousand generally. The total number of about 10,000 I gave you is not only in Lagos, but across the country. We need to do mass testing.
What is your view on the nation’s health sector, against the threat of outbreak of the disease in the North, like you mentioned Kano, with huge population and rising cases?
My view is simple, even countries that have strong health system, they were overwhelmed by COVID-19 infection; countries like America, United Kingdom that are having over 700 deaths within 24 hours, and these are countries that their health system is stronger than that of Nigeria, and I hope we don’t get to that position because we have a very weak health system.
I just sincerely pray that we don’t get to that position. We have to have trust and have faith in God not to get to that position because even in Italy, it got to a position that the country’s leadership said there is nowhere they can expect help rather than look unto God because they have lost all hope. I pray we don’t get to that position.
You association is critical to this pandemic, why is it not included in the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19?
I don’t know. The president chose those he wanted to be in the taskforce and he didn’t invite us; we have made a lot of presentations that those of us in the health field, we should be invited so that we can give the situation on the field as our members are the ones working at those levels. Up till today, we have not had such opportunity. So, it is left with the president, I don’t know why he doesn’t deem it fit to have us in that committee.
Even if he doesn’t want to have us in that committee, we have told the committee members that it is within their power to set up a technical team and invite some of the associations so that we can sit down and give them technical information on ground that will form the basis of the decision they want to present to Mr President. None of the options given has been considered. We have resorted to do our own inter professional relationship, the doctors, nurses and pharmacists, and we are reviewing things by ourselves given the information we can give to help and ensuring that our members continue to work at their different places of work so that we can take care of Nigerians.
Were the health personnel in Nigeria overwhelmed by what was on ground or what was to come that necessitated the invitation of Chinese doctors to the country?
We have heard several versions of why the Chinese doctors came to Nigeria. Nigerian Medical Association and other sister professional associations have claimed severally that there was no reason for their coming, as we have not been overwhelmed; in fact, we have not even used up to 15 per cent of our capacity; we have been doing well, as it were, the percentage of death or fatality has not been higher than the average all over the world.
The Federal Government has come out to say that they were not the one who invited them, that it was the Chinese when they said that they were going to give the Federal Ministry of Health some medical consumables, and that they were coming with their medical experts. Initially, they said they were coming to share experience, and at a time, they said they were coming to install the machines they were bringing, we hear all sorts of things and we have insisted that if it were to share experience, yes, we expect them to support us, share experience. We have so many ways of interaction; we do phone calls, all the IT platforms, Zoom, teleconferencing, etc, where we can interact. If it were to come and install the machines – they were just bringing in 50 ventilators, which are not equipment parts you want to install, our health professionals are conversant with the use; even if you want to tell us how to use it, you can tell us over the IT platforms; it is not entirely new and we can work on it.
It was when they came that the managing director of the Chinese construction company came out and said that they want to start treating their staff who are working in their company and we said, this is not done, it is against all known professional regulations; you cannot just come into a country and start treating your nationals or any other person. It is not done; you cannot come into a sovereign country and start behaving like that. These are the reasons we said, they don’t have genuine reasons to be here physically, and if they said they were not going to see Nigerian patients or any patients at all, then why have they come and what have they come to do? These are the questions, we are not averse to sharing experience; to hear their experience, but they don’t need to be here physically to do that.
We are hearing cases of people recovering from COVID-19, yet there is no vaccine for it, what medication was administered that led to their recovery?
I guess you must have had cough and catarrh before, especially catarrh, and usually most catarrh after a time when you sneeze it goes, either you used any drug or not. Most catarrh cases are caused by viral illnesses; even coronavirus is part of those causing this catarrh.
The one we have got now, which is COVID-19 is a special brand of coronavirus that goes beyond the normal catarrh that we usually have; this one can cause more severe illnesses. So, you treat it or you do not treat it, most of the times you recover based on your immunity. If they have cough you give cough drugs, if they have fever you give antipyretic drugs, that is drugs that take care of fever, if they have body pains, you give drugs that make them relieve pains, if they are stooling, vomiting or perspiring so much you give them enough fluid. Most of the times, the body recovers appropriately and that is what we have seen in many of them.
It is only few of them that go into severe cases that may get to position in which they will have respiratory difficulty and sometimes it will cause acute respiratory distress and sometimes it can cause the kidney to fail, and it is in the negligible.
Usually, the case fatality ration or percentage of COVID-19, as it is, is about five to six percent. In most countries there are about two to three per cent, and maximum five per cent. So, it means that for every 100, maybe 95 will recover either you use anything or not.
Those that have recovered many a times, they were given enough supportive therapy and if they do not have severe illnesses they recover spontaneously.
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