Nigeria, a country notorious for weak health facility, lacks the impetus to contain the deadly respiratory disease, Coronavirus, a one of the country’s science professors has declared.
Oyewole Tomori, a professor and fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, whose research areas include infectious diseases and public health, told Bloomberg in a recent interview that Africa’s most populous nation, is among a number of countries where the response is likely to be inadequate.
“If it comes, what next do you do?” he said. “Do you have the isolation wards where you can keep the people? Do you have proper systems of monitoring? Do you have laboratory diagnostics for it? In each of those areas, I don’t think we are measuring up to par and that is my worry, ” said Tomori.
Death toll from Coronavirus has reached 800, higher than the 744 people killed by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that ravaged China in 2013.
According to a recent report by The World Health Organisation (WHO), almost 37,200 people in China have now been infected with the virus.
The epidemic has spread to the Europe and United States as three people in the United Kingdom (UK) have tested positive to the disease.
There are concerns by WHO that Africa, notorious for decrepit health facilities and a rapidly growing population that live in penury, have the capacity to tame the disease if it enters the continent.
The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which helps nations on the continent tackle and prevent infectious diseases, has also voiced concern about their capacity to cope with a wide-scale epidemic.
