ABDULAZEEZ ANJORIN (Ph.D.), senior researcher and lecturer, Lagos State University, Ojo, is a trained Fellow on Molecular Virology from the Luxembourg Institute of Health, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He is a member of many international bodies including the World Society for Virology (WSV), International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), American Society for Microbiology (ASM), African Network for Influenza Surveillance and Epidemiology (ANISE), among others. In this interview with TELIAT SULE (BusinessDay Research Unit-BRIU), he explains the right steps taken so far by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID 19, the tendency of COVID-19 to spread for the next three months or even more, as well as other things the committee should have done better. Excerpts:
Virology is a major discipline that has been on the front burner since the outbreak of coronavirus. What is this discipline all about?
Virology officially began in 1892 as a discipline. It is a special discipline in microbiology that deals with the study of everything about sub-microscopic obligate intracellular entities capable of reproducing themselves in living susceptible host cells. Virology as a discipline is special because of the unique properties of viruses, their mechanisms of survival, and the processes of causing diseases. They are obligate intracellular entities because they live primarily inside any cell by coercion to survive within that cell.
Viruses can also multiply, which is having progenies because they possess either DNA or RNA and never both unlike in other organisms. This makes them unique as RNA or DNA viruses. Mind you, the reproduction or survival can only be achieved in the hosts that agree to terms with the viruses. That is, susceptible, otherwise the virus will not marry such a cell and will rather quit the system. The discipline is also special because the objects in question, I mean the viruses cannot be easily grown and studied like other common agents like a bacterium or fungus that can be grown on common laboratory chemical materials. Viruses are grown or cultured in living materials like monkey or kidney cell-lines and even in bacteria, mosquitoes or human cell-lines before they can be studied.
We have different disciplines with specialists e.g. viral genomics, viral pathogenesis, viral epidemiology, viral proteomics, phylogeny, etc. that branch into different areas including animal virology that studies arboviruses, i.e. arthropod or insect borne viruses like dengue or yellow fever viruses. We have human virology where deadly viruses of man are studied be it Ebola, Lassa or HIV. There is also environmental virology, plant virology and many more.
Nigeria has been on the edge since February 27. What is this novel coronavirus all about? What does this Covid 19 share with past pandemics?
Generally, coronaviruses (CoVs) are members of the family of coronaviridae that derived their name following common etymology from the Greek word corona, meaning crown-like appearance being their structure under electron microscope. The first CoV was isolated by Fred Beaudette in 1937. The novel coronavirus is the new baby in that family that was unknown to our immune system before now and that is why it’s R0, meaning transmission and death rates are alarming because no one has ever been immune to the virus before. The novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 is a single stranded RNA virus that is positively sensed. That means, it can start reproducing itself directly without any conversion once it enters any host cell, making it very easy for the virus to multiply unlike those that are negatively sensed.
It belongs to the Order Nidovirales and Genus betacoronavirus unlike the others that belong to the alpha, gamma and delta genera. The novel coronavirus/SARS-CoV-2 has a pleomorphic and circular structure with a diameter of about 60-140 nm that can be easily transmitted from human-to-human by respiratory droplets from sneezing, coughing and aerosols, with symptomatic people being the major source of transmission. Also, it has a dynamic incubation period of about 7 to 14 days.
Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic and past pandemics of viral origin are similar because their agents happened to be respiratory tract viruses with common transmission dynamics but the COVID-19 pandemic is nothing compared to the mother of all pandemics, the Spanish flu, which occurred about a century ago in 1918. The Spanish flu infected one third of the world population. That is, 500 million people out of the 1.5 billion world population and killed between 50-100 million of our great grandparents globally in 3 different waves. It was the worst of all pandemics.
Some people believe coronavirus was made from a laboratory. What distinguishes a man-made virus from a natural virus? Where would you classify coronavirus?
A man-made virus can easily be spotted by virologists and other biomedical scientists as it will never have all the evolutionary origin and phylogenetic relatedness of the known viruses. If it has some traces, it will never be as high as the features and characterisation observed in this very virus where research has shown to us using one of the standard tools of evolutionary determinants for tracing the origin of any agent in the field of medical science called molecular phylogeny. In actual fact, it is not a genetically modified or laboratory made virus-like some people have opined but rather a new mutant as a result of evolutionary changes. Available studies showed that the novel coronavirus has 96.2% similarity to a bat SARS-related coronavirus recently isolated in China and this discovery went well with all the comparative evidences including historical and human life-style in that part of the world.
What have we done right and what could we have done better in the handling of Covid-19?
Oh, what we have done right? The President should be applauded for constituting the presidential task force (PTF) with its attendant daily briefings, the different restriction orders, the NCDC expansion of our laboratory testing facilities, the recent ministerial experts’ advisory committee and a few other things.
What could we have done better? The travel ban on the 13 countries considered to be of high risk for COVD-19 on the 18th of March 2020 was late. All borders ought to have been closed long before that time. The presidential task force and the ministerial nominees ought to contain at least 50% respiratory tract virologists who are experts on respiratory viruses, especially coronavirus. Every state must have at least 3-5 molecular virology laboratories with trained virologists to be engaged in active disease surveillance and serious research on viruses to detect circulating viruses even before any outbreak like the laboratory of Prof. SA Omilabu that detected the index case here in the country in less than 5 hours.
The virology laboratories can be best situated in the universities whose core mandates are to do serious research. It is the same way every governor must partner the Nigerian Virologists, the Nigerian Society for Microbiology and others for the same in their various research institutes and universities.
We need a breakthrough in viral and other microbial surveillance for prompt detection and diagnosis, genomics, proteomics, molecular epidemiology, molecular docking for drug design and vaccine production. Any serious government must be interested in funding cutting-edge research in any of these areas that can lead to massive industrialization of its economy e.g. diagnostics and equipment manufacturing, pharmaceutical, agricultural and other industries for the advancement of the country.
Daily, the confirmed cases are rising, what do we need to do as a people to flatten the curve?
We just need to be proactive, change our attitudes and improve on our strategies. I will quickly give some suggestions that we can try to flatten the curve:
i. There is need for the federal and state governments, as a matter of urgency, to expand and establish at least 3 molecular virology research laboratories in every state in the country.
ii. The need to include experienced medical/ molecular virologists in the presidential task force and in every state COVID-19 committee to better assist and give directions on how to handle and control SARS-COV-2 in the interest of the country and every state of the federation. This is not the time to play politics but rather to allow the professional and most qualified experts when it comes to viruses and virological matters to guide the nation on what should be expected and how to tame/ handle the deadly particles.
iii. The government and Nigerians, in general, should expect more cases for the next 3 months as it is known with pandemic viruses that usually spread for about 6 to 18 months hence all hands must be on deck to engage more medical/ molecular virologists to lead on what is expected and how to fight the viral war.
iv. The immediate need for expert opinion, meetings and pre-index case plans in every local government of the federation for more preventive strategies since prevention they say is better than cure.
v. The need for serious research on point of care testing kits and antiviral studies on severe acute respiratory syndrome corona and other viruses including Lassa and monkeypox that is endemic in Nigeria.
These must be funded by the Nigerian government, concerned individuals, and donor agencies in order to look inward for potential antiviral candidates by our professors, medical, animal, and plant virologists. Other medical microbiologists and health care practitioners.
