ADVERTISEMENT
The Sun Nigeria
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun
No Result
View All Result
The Sun Nigeria
No Result
View All Result
Home Columns

COVID-19: Scaling up a homegrown approach to combat Global Pandemic

1st April 2020
in Columns
0
COVID-19: Scaling up a homegrown approach to combat Global Pandemic
0
SHARES
101
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The number of confirmed infections of the COVID-19 virus as announced by the Federal Ministry of Health and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) keeps increasing exponentially. But we have also been fortunate that some of them are recovering and the death toll remains low with 2 reported as these lines are written.

The closure of land, sea, and air borders; lockdown ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari for Lagos, Abuja (FCT), and Ogun; lockdown of many states ordered by their governments; and closure of schools, markets, places of worship, etc. are all impressive responses that are geared towards containment and prevention by curtailing fresh imported cases and community spread. However, if the trends in other climes are anything to go by, the spike in the number of cases in Nigeria clearly means that the country has now approached the threshold of actual case management of the pandemic and we must brace up for it. This means that the nation must necessarily prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Our response readiness must, therefore, be more robust than it has ever been, and we must scale up the availability of resource requirements across the country particularly in the areas of testing, treatment and isolation as well as contact tracing and tracking.

Clearly, one question that must be puzzling our “first responders” and indeed all Nigerians is: How can we source critical equipment like ventilators, test kits, among others that are required in the management of this pandemic? Reports indicate that the number of such life-saving equipment are nowhere near our requirements to manage a mild situation, let alone a dire scenario such as we have in some parts of the world.  This is largely due to the sad fact that our health system is broken.

Before now, our convenient approach would have been to import them or get help from the international community. Unfortunately, today, the world is in crisis and there is high demand for these requirements across all countries. As at the morning of Tuesday, March 30 this year, 788,054 COVID-19 cases and 37,877 deaths have been recorded globally and every country is grappling its own challenges. The nations that manufacture these equipment are in critical situations themselves and in dire shortage of supplies for their own citizens.

For instance, we cannot possibly turn to the United States of America, which is dealing with 164,359 cases and has recorded 3,173 deaths thus far. The Governor of the State of New York, Andrew Cuomo, recently announced that they need 30,000 ventilators, but the Federal Government had only provided 4,000. Therefore, the State had to procure about 3,000 manually operated bag valve masks and ordered 4,000 more. The same scenario is reflected in other industrialized countries like the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Canada and Germany, which are ramping up production of the much-needed equipment to confront this pandemic, but for their own people.

In view of this and since we are dealing with a novel virus that is dictating the timelines, we must be ingenious in adopting a homegrown approach to deploying innovative solutions. The times call us out to think out of the box in exploring possibilities to locally manufacture some of the critical equipment we need to manage the situation. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. For example, Wales has just invented a new ventilator, a virus-killing snood to tackle coronavirus. They have equally invented a hands-free door pull. According to the BBC, the ventilator has already successfully treated a COVID-19 patient. Now backed by the Welsh Government, mass production of the snood-type mask is under way while a 3D design of the handle has been widely circulated.

Instructively, Nigeria is also known to thrive in times of crisis as exemplified by the exploits of the defunct Eastern Region during the Civil War when the Research and Production Organisation, comprising the likes of Engineers Gordian Ezekwe, Benjamin Nwosu, Willy Achukwu and other scientists mainly from the University of Nigeria Nsukka rose to the challenge in the design and production of equipment.

So, the best way forward for Nigeria now is to make funds available to manufacturers to retool their production lines and get to work. Only recently, America’s President Trump relied on their Defence Production Act to direct General Motors to produce ventilators. One is then tempted to believe that there may be something in the production line of assembling automobile that is suitable for manufacturing ventilators. Interestingly, our own Innoson Motors had offered to produce ventilators for us. Since it is not their primary line of production, it is important for the government to intervene and incentivise the company and others like it to reconfigure their production line and produce sample ventilators, test them for quality assurance and standards, and possibly mass-produce for the country. This can be supported by legislative enactments that can orchestrate the manufacture of essential equipment and drugs with appropriate funding for it. Even when the days of this pandemic are over, they can still be applied to use in our healthcare system. Importantly, they also become production lines that could be further developed to enhance our local content in the long run. It is a window of opportunity and it is time to get going because every second counts now.

We are also racing against time in testing as many Nigerians as possible. The NCDC has indicated that we currently have molecular laboratories in Lagos (2), Osun, Oyo, Edo and FCT. However, it is believed that Nigeria has about 34 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) laboratories across the country. What is the current of each of them? Can we repurpose them with the right equipment, instruments, consumables, etc. to enhance their capabilities to test for COVID-19? It is pleasing to note that one such virology laboratory has been repurposed and activated in Abakaliki within a few days. So, is it not possible to progressively do the same for the others and ramp up testing across the country? We can also rely on specially trained and equipped riders (and there are organisations already active in it) to collect samples rather than appropriating scarce resources to the procurement of cars. These riders are even better able to reach our hinterlands faster and navigate through our poor road infrastructure. My point here is that our current response is largely dictated by our testing capabilities, therefore there is a sense of urgency in ensuring that we expand our capacity to test more Nigerians in every part of Nigeria.

I strongly believe that we can join hands together to contain and eliminate this pandemic, especially if we apply creative thinking. To do that, we should explore and scale up homegrown models. We can, and will, defeat COVID-19.

• Okechukwu is Deputy Minority Leader, House of Representatives

Click Here>>>>>>7 Natural Herbs to Finally End Premature Ejaculation and Weak Erection<<<<<<

Click Here>>>>>>Anti-kidnap and anti-theft device for tracking and listening<<<<<<

Rapheal

Rapheal

Related Posts

Searching for smoking guns against Atiku
Columns

Covid-19 vaccines: Yahaya Bello’s kick in the teeth

26th January 2021
Ortom’s gun advocacy
Broken Tongues

Fireworks in Ondo forests

25th January 2021
Presidential election: Choosing between Atiku and Buhari
Columns

Akeredolu and Miyetti Allah Empire

25th January 2021
Next Post
How vandalism of telecom infrastructure is affecting quality of service

How vandalism of telecom infrastructure is affecting quality of service

Edo: Adult education centres’ll curb human trafficking –Obaseki’s aide  

Edo condemns hike in food items’ price

Rapid diagnostic test kits not validated yet, says NCDC

Delta receives prevention kits from NCDC

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Highlights

South East town unions hit Miyetti Allah

PTF, COVID-19 accountability and probity

Why I want to be president –Mazi Ohuabunwa

Reasons PDP lost Kwara in 2019 –Zakari Muhammed

SON destroys N300m substandard tyres, cylinders

FG deficit rises to N4.45tr in 10 months

Trending

Education transforms indigent child  to respectable citizen –Adisa, child advocate
Features

Education transforms indigent child to respectable citizen –Adisa, child advocate

26th January 2021
0

By Bianca Iboma-Emefu  Risikat Adeola Adisa is the executive director of Ramah Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO)...

March 9: Wike marching to victory

N500m donation: Have we lost our sense of humanity?

26th January 2021
SMBLF pulls out of peace talk, protests inclusion of Miyetti Allah

Ortom not moved by Miyetti Allah’s antics

26th January 2021
South East town unions hit Miyetti Allah

South East town unions hit Miyetti Allah

26th January 2021
Easing covid-19 lockdown: The dangers ahead (1)

PTF, COVID-19 accountability and probity

26th January 2021
ADVERTISEMENT

Follow us on social media:

Categories

  • Abuja Metro
  • Arts
  • Broken Tongues
  • Business
  • Business Week
  • Cartoons
  • Citizen Joe
  • Columns
  • Cover
  • Culture
  • Duro Onabule
  • Editorial
  • Education Review
  • Effect
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Events
  • Features
  • Femi Adesina
  • Food & Drinks
  • Frank Talk
  • Funke Egbemode
  • Gallery
  • Global Square by Kenneth Okonkwo
  • Health
  • Insights
  • Kalu Leadership Series
  • Kunle Solaja
  • Kunle Solaja
  • Letters
  • Lifeline
  • Lifestyle
  • Literary Review
  • Marketing Matters
  • Muiz Banire
  • National
  • News
  • Offside Musings
  • Opinion
  • oriental news
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • PressClips
  • Public Sphere
  • Ralph Egbu
  • Shola Oshunkeye
  • Sideview
  • South-west Magazine
  • Sponsored Post
  • Sporting Sun
  • Sports
  • Sun Girl
  • Tea Time
  • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
  • The Sun Awards Live
  • The Sun TV
  • Thoughts & Talks
  • Time Out
  • Today's cover
  • Tola Adeniyi
  • Travel
  • Travel & Tourism
  • Trending
  • TSWeekend
  • Turf Game
  • Uncategorized
  • Updates
  • Views from Abroad
  • Voices
  • World
  • World News
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Paper Ad Rate
  • Online Ad Rate
  • The Team
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

© 2019 The Sun Nigeria - Managed by Netsera.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun

© 2019 The Sun Nigeria - Managed by Netsera.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist