The continent followed Western nations too closely in its early response to the coronavirus emergency, says Nigerian virologist Oyewale Tomori.
Nigerian virologist Oyewale Tomori assesses how African countries navigated the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this fourth episode, we speak again to Professor Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist, who is well known for his media commentary of the COVID-19 pandemic. He previously worked for the World Health Organization and now acts as government adviser on disease outbreaks.The epidemiology of COVID in Africa is different from what is happening in Europe and other parts. That’s number one. And I think we should have recognized that before we planned our response.
The movement of the COVID virus is from man to man, not from government office. And if I get the COVID and I don’t spread it to you, it dies within me. And therefore we don’t have epidemics going on. I think we should have stressed that the most, the more important player in the COVID epidemic was the human, the public, not the government.At the initial stage I mean, we know of lockdowns, palliative, and a number of countries becomes majorly corruption, and so on and so forth.
You know, like when we started the ACDC said, “We had to leave three, four laboratories that could diagnose COVID in Nigeria” These are some of the things about our planning that we need to look at. Did we really plan properly? How many laboratories do we need? Could we have done with fewer, and improve the access of the laboratories to the states? Those are things. You know, I mean, I think I hope we’re learning from what…. but unfortunately, many of the African countries, once the epidemic is over, we forget whatever lessons we learned. And then when your next one comes, we start all over again from scratch.
If we decentralize the control to the lowest level of local government, state level, then our national centres, African regional centres, will be in a position to assist, to coordinate. We look at where it’s coming from, this place, what planes they come by, who are the passengers. That was when the US CDC came in.
But then so at the end of that huge opportunity said, We did well, what about during that period of record, the number of children that got infected with polio, because you boycotted. So when we talk about doing well I think it is a relative term. That’s number one. It’s a combination of so many things. If you look at the people, check who are dying in Europe, the elderly people, 50 years old, who have comorbidities, diabetes, hypertension, whatever.
So that’s who we were testing. So we’re getting 20 instead of getting 200 because we’re not testing those who are asymptomatic, who are going about spreading disease all over the place. You know, those are the issues. And that’s what I was saying that it was left for us at home to sit down and look at our data. Should we have approached it the way they said lock down? Let me give you a good idea.
It could also be that deaths were under reported. But as Professor Tomori says, there was a ripple effect of early lockdowns that will also have played a major part in saving African nations from more serious consequences. How easy is it to spread COVID in an air-conditioned office as compared to outside air? Those are the kind of things we should be looking at? And then so that we provide an address to our government,
Is it possible for us at the African level, at the African Union level, to say that, yes, this is happening in Europe in these places. Don't come.The decision to lock down is a country decision. It cannot be continental. Every country must look at his own situation. I mean, for example, it’s not everybody coming, let's say there’s a problem in India, Indian people don’t go to every country in Africa.
It has to be a regular thing. Unfortunately, this side of the world doesn't understand your surveillance is good, and there's no epidemic then don't even see what you’re doing until the epidemic comes. No, the official number of those who survived is about 37. But he knew in those days of childhood mortality, you must have lost almost the same number.He was close to that. Listen, I’m not going to look. I don’t want to inherit my father’s house. Nor do my children want to inherit where we are now. Because right now, the data, please know that they didn’t want to inherit even their own house, because this will not be better.
But if you look behind that, and I keep seeing it and as the thing that when you say we see we have no community of people.
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