Coronavirus: Between systemic failure, Ekiti’s fate and others

By Tunde Abatan

When the Coronavirus pandemic broke out last December not a few suggested the need for federal government to take proactive measures to stem the importation and spread of the virus in the country using our porous borders and health system.
Indeed not a few suggested the need to subject foreigners to quarratine tests to determine their state of health.
It is instructive that with the official report of the first index of an Italian two weeks ago and the subsequent quarantine and his separation into a dedicated clinic by the Lagos State governments, other governments like Ogun and Ekiti states also set up centres to treat victims with the introduction of sanitization of the public and quarantine of those who have had contact with the first index by the Ogun State government. In other words, the state government could only quarantine those the index case had contact with during his visit to Ewekoro, his first port of call and the cab driver who took him there.
As it is with our state of procedure in immigration matters, it is hard for all those who have had contact with this index case to be isolated and treated to prevent the unforseen.

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While Lagos was at the centre of the issue, Ekiti State through Governor Fayem’s 40 members team led by him and heath commissioner, Dr Mojisola Yayah Kolade, appears set to tackle the issue not with free distribution of sanitizers and enlightenment of the citizenry.
However, the death on Wednesday of an American citizen in Ekiti and the positive test for his male driver who took him from the Muurtala Muhammed  International Airport, Ikeja ,Lagos, appears to have cast a big gap and loophole in the ability of our system to absorb any epidemic due principally to our lack of keeping records and maintaining protocol procedures as required by international best practices.

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Until the setting up of a federal government committee headed by secretary to the federal government, Boss Mustapha , (who is even not a medical personnel), last Monday, not enough measures were taken to prepare our country as the biggest by ran sport hub in Africa.
Thus, when the American who had travelled to Ibadan, Oyo State since his arrival on March 3rd and stayed for 10 days also compounded the possible treatment assuming he had reported his symptoms. Ironically, that only him and the driver who is still been stabilised tested positive raises some posers as to how his female care -giver who accompanied him from the United States tested negative.
Another poser is that given their closeness, how could she have tested negative while only the driver who came from Ekiti to pick him and stayed with him in Ibadan together with the care-giver tested positive.
Could it be that the driver had the symptoms of the virus in him before his encounter with the American while the care giver was also free of the virus.
Adequate quarantine at the international airport could possibly have resolved this riddle while earlier stoppage of flights from coronavirus infested countries like America,United Kingdom,Italy, China and nine other countries on which a travel ban was belatedly placed like Tuesday could have mitigated the spread of the virus.
As things stand today,chances are high that most of those eight Nigerians allegedly infected with the virus were infected by foreigners who either passed through our airports unnoticed or were not diagnosed enough since no adequate preemptive measures were out in place at our airports since December last year when the pandemic became public knowledge.
Another issue is that of the level of diagnosis and treatment the dead American who had stayed in Ibadan,Oyo state received before he was referred to a tertiary institution as claimed by Dr Yayah -Kolade, the ekiti state commissioner who issued a statement on Wednesday.
But then, how do we trace the people and even the three dramatis personae had had contact with during their 10-day stay in Ibadan.
What moves have the Oyo state government where the American stayed for 10 made to contact the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). Surprisingly, while efforts were been made to track the movement of the trio in Ibadan,the town was agog with a south west Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) rally obivious of the likely keg of gun powder the state might be sitting on with the fact that the trio have spent ten days in the state capital and inability so far to trace those they have had contact with who might possibly be in the crowd of ecstatic party supporters who converged on the state capital even while NCDC and the Presidential committee has warned of the dangers of organising events that would attract huge crowd.
As things stands today,several states in the country could have in their midst free-coronavirus agents who have had contact or even carrying the deadly disease before the ban on visitors and planes from those countries in the last two weeks.
With our traditional reluctance to report health issues until they showed or manifest late symptoms that could’ve been in the system within the first fourteen days of maturity, chances are that Ekiti experience may just be lurking within states in the southwest region and other parts of the country that must have received such guests within the period.