• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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COVID-19: Nigeria turns to precision lockdown to halt mounting community transmission

lockdown easing

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 headed by Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, has announced that it would impose precisely targeted lockdown measures in areas that report rapid increase in cases of coronavirus.

As at the end June, 20 local government areas across the country account for 60 percent of novel COVID-19 cases. Specifically, 11 of such red spots are located in Lagos, Nigeria’s sprawling commercial centre.

A breakdown of figures as at June 26, shows Eti-Osa Local Government had highest number of reported cases with 1,515 cases, Alimosho, the largest local government in the state, had 663 cases, Kosofe had 659 cases, Ikeja had 620 cases, Oshodi-Isolo had 496 cases, Surulere had 478 cases, Lagos Mainland had 363 cases, Mushin with 318 cases, Amuwo-Odofin had 255 cases, Ibeju-Lekki with 226 cases, Somolu had 245 cases, Ikorodu had 224 cases, Apapa had 210 cases, Lagos Island had 195 cases, Agege with 159 cases, Ojo had 133 cases, Ifako-Ijaiye had 119 cases, Ajeromi Ifelodun with 84 cases, Lagos Offshore had 73 cases, Badagary and Epe had 40 and 35 cases, respectively.

Nigeria is not the only country adopting precision lockdown in a bid to halt the spread of the virus. In England, Leicester would remain under lockdown measures for at least two more weeks as restriction, even as the loosening of restriction in England is expected to start on July 4. It comes after the city recorded 944 positive cases in the two weeks to June 23, about one in every 16 of the total UK cases during that period.

The new restriction would see non-essential shops shut, ban on non-essential travels in and out of the city, no pubs, restaurants or hairdressers will open on July 4. Unlike the rest of England, a walk-in testing centres is also being set up in the city, with extra funding for all Leicester councils to help support local businesses and those who need to self-isolate.

According to figures released by the National Centre for Disease and Control (NCDC), as at June 30, Nigeria has recorded a total of 25,694 cases with 138,462 samples tested. By implication, Nigeria has a test positivity rate at 18.5 percent, with global average at 31.4 percent.

As at June 30, Lagos being the epic centre with 10,510, confirmed cases with 35,112 samples tested. By implication, Lagos has a test positivity rate of 29.9 percent. This means the state’s test positivity rate is higher than the national average.

Test positivity rate is the proportion of administered testes that conclude the subject has the disease being tested for.

According to the Lagos-State commissioner for health, Akin Abayomi, a total of 4,891 cases were reported in Lagos between June 2 and June 27, a 50 percent surge in reported cases during the period. Over 5,000 of the cases monitored in communities by the state’s response team have either recovered or responded positively to treatments at home. 454 of such cases are currently under isolation in public and private care centres across the state.

Sadly, 2,683 active cases in the communities are yet to turn up for admission in care centres either due to ignorance, fear of stigmatisation or preference for home care. The state has also recorded a total of 128 covid-19 related deaths.

Christian Happi, a professor and director, African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Redeemer’s University, Ede, Oshun State, said residents of the affected areas must buy into the idea for the precision lockdown to yield any result.

“Government should not lockdown and leave the people but aggressive testing must be carried out, with positive cases isolated for treatment,” he said.

In his own view, Austin Obi, a Lagos-based lawyer and public affairs analyst, said the state government must double down on its testing strategy and contact tracing of over 2,000 community confirmed cases who refused to commit themselves to the isolation centre.

“Precision lockdown is not enough. We need to increase our testing mechanism in those areas. Some of these local government areas have issues with their location and the fact that they do not have defined borders,” he said.

Currently, four public laboratories with a combined capacity of 2,000 are testing COVID-19 samples in Lagos.

To increase the level of testing the Lagos State government on Tuesday launched a consortium of seven private laboratories in the first phase in a bid to increase the accessibility of testing facilities to the organised private and corporate sector who may wish to test for various reasons. The state government also opened a 150-bed isolation centre at the Mainland Infectious Disease Centre, Yaba.

According to Austin, provision of a walk-in test centre at strategic points or bus-stops in the affected areas and public enlightenment would help in deploying precision lockdown in affected areas across the country.

Concerns have also continued to mount across the continent relative to testing strength of countries, especially at a time when the virus is said to have reached the stage of community transmission in most places.

According to John Hopkins University tallies, Africa’s case load crossed the 400,000 mark as of July 1, with death toll also surpassing 10,000.

There are over 201,800 active cases against 193,000 recoveries across Africa. South Africa remains the most impacted with over 150,000 cases from over 1.6 million tests. The top five countries with confirmed cases are South Africa (151,209), Egypt (68,311), and Nigeria with over 25,000, Ghana (17,741) and Algeria (13,907). These statistics are valid as of July 1, 2020.

Although, Africa’s figures continue to be very low compared to other continents, Europe and America alone accounted for over 50 percent of cases when the WHO recently confirmed that global figures had gone past 10,000,000. Over in South America, Brazil remains one of the worst impacted along with Iran in the Middle East. Russia and India also have very high caseloads.