PI Imoesi

<h1>We are currently at a point in our lives as a nation and a people where the fight against COVID-19 is becoming difficult by the day. </h1>

This trend will become more tougher in the coming days if not nip in the bud. Despite the government awareness of the COVID-19 stigmatisation, there seems to be no solution in sight as the only message from the government is ‘take responsibility,’ but how?&nbsp;Inasmuch as there is nothing wrong in telling people to take responsibility, it is obvious this mantra of self-responsibility is less effective or at best it is seen as another lexicon associated with the current COVID-19 era.&nbsp;

But what is stigmatisation as regards to health? It is an act where a group of people or individuals are labelled owing to a particular disease. In every instance of a new disease outbreak such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is often common that vulnerable people, health workers, families or race get stereotyped, treated with disdain or ostracised from the community. These forms of treatment could easily drive people to depression, and in extreme cases suicidal ideation. At the onset of a new disease especially highly contagious diseases, stigmatisation is always the next-door neighbour. But the downside of early stigmatisation in a disease outbreak is that people may lose their lives due to fear of stigmatisation, and as the awareness becomes intensified, those who were the propeller of stigmatisation may likely fall in line. The question to be put forward to the citizenry is, how many will be fortunate to fall in line and will those who shy away from treatment due to stigmatisation be alive to tell the story?&nbsp;&nbsp;

The risk of social stigmatisation is too high a burden especially for a disease where the symptoms only begin to appear after five to seven days from exposure to an infected person. When people fail to step forward due to the possibility of social stigmatisation, this places everyone at risk including individuals fuelling stigmatisation. In addressing the bane of COVID-19 stigmatisation here are a few of my recommendations:&nbsp;

Stigmatisation only persist when people are poorly educated or wrongly informed about the true nature of a disease. To address this, the government needs to put the behavioural pattern of Nigerians into context in terms of learning and adherence to instructions. A perfect example is the era of HIV advocacy; now is the time to adopt the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) strategy in the early days of HIV in Nigeria.&nbsp;

<h3>A Change in Patient Extraction Strategy</h3>

Due to the sensitivity of the time, the use of marked vehicle such as ambulance should be discouraged and only used when extracting patients with severe conditions. Also, if patients could walk a few distance from their residence to a neutral place for pick-up this will equally help. When people are certain that their identity will be concealed, a lot more people will readily cooperate. Rather than broad daylight extraction, COVID-19 positive patients could be extracted at night. The end product here is treatment and by extension limiting the rate of COVID-19 spread.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Once individuals suspect loss of smell, taste or general body weakness and persist malaria-like symptoms, they should be encouraged to call the NCDC. The benefit of early reporting will reduce the number of contact tracing and by extension the authorities won’t have to question every single individual around. The benefit of this to the infected individual seeking anonymous is less word out into the community. It is therefore imperative people are aware of this benefit.

If individuals – asymptomatic patients do have the right conducive and requisite recovery environment, such individuals should be given the opportunity to homecare. This can then be supervised through video tele-care and telecommunication should be partnered for the provision of free data to the COVID-19 patient over the period of treatment and recovery phase.&nbsp;

No doubt the use of certain words or language can fuel stigmatisation and dehumanising in many ways. Rather than use ‘isolation centres’ how about ‘recovery centres.’ Also, NCDC should adopt a new way of reporting, for instance, confirmed cases could be replaced with ‘COVID-19 conducted tests;’ suspected cases to people with likely COVID-19 infection, discharged to recovered. The careful choice of words and usage will certainly reduce the level of discrimination.&nbsp;

To drive home the message of COVID-19 reality, popular artiste, comedians, actors or social media influencers should be engaged for a video-shoot in the respective recovery centres across the nation. The populace will readily buy into to such individual personalities compared to the normal journalist in the mainstream media. Of course, these individuals should be provided and protected with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPEs).

<h3>A community of COVID-19 Survivors</h3>

The vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 is nowhere in sight and if at all there is one in the next 9-months, Nigeria may likely not be on the list of top-twenty. Therefore, if we take seriously the magnitude of what we have at hand, then we need to encourage COVID-19 survivors’ community to help drive the reality of the disease across board. We are as strong as our weakest link in the fight against COVID-19.

<h3>Clarity of Purpose and Sincerity</h3>

There is a stigma as regard insincerity of the government generally perceived by the people. This form of stigmatisation mumbled with less clarity of purpose as regard the existing plan for the COVID-19 pandemic, portrays the government in a deceitful light to the people. One of such clarity is; are we waiting secretly for a vaccine? Are we equally banking on herds-immunity quietly by allowing majority of Nigerians get infected owing to the age demography, and knowing fully well many will recover without knowing they had the virus? The government should be seen as communicating clearly and truthfully, brushing such concerns aside will further lead to the stigmatisation of the government by the people.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

At this rate of unknown causes of death in the country, activating one’s survival instinct to pull through 2020 is more crucial than many other things in life for the now!

Dr PI Imoesi, BSc, MSc, Ph.D.&nbsp;

Molecular Neuroscientist and Research Fellow,&nbsp;

Institute of Medical Science,&nbsp;

Email: <a href="mailto:peter.imoesi@abdn.ac.uk">peter.imoesi@abdn.ac.uk</a>

Addressing COVID-19 stigmatisation in Nigeria

My question to Nigerians, would you rather be stigmatised of COVID-19 and remain alive or hide away with the disease and go six-feet? Get a test if you suspect loss of smell or taste, your life is more important than any form of stigmatisation!

<h1>In some clime, they hid under the myth of strong genetic composition and high temperature and did little or nothing in the preparedness for a possible outbreak. </h1>

It is rather no news that over half a million individuals have contracted the disease; and as many are fighting for their lives in hospital bed, over twenty-four thousand have met their waterloo in the hands of the dreadful Coronavirus-disease-2019 aka COVID-19.

What seems to be so small (virus) and beyond the sight of human eyes except with the aid of a microscope, has successfully creeped and roped the strong and mighty, presidents and leaders of nations not left-out.

At this stage no one is spared, it is either the virus has embraced you, and same time rendering some powerful punches like the one Anthony Joshua never recovered from in his first fight with Andy Ruiz Jr., or you are fighting in the grocery shops trying to get the necessary essentials or your finance is bleeding out by the day or you are compulsory imprisoned in a flat or a four-by-four box room otherwise called self-isolation or stay-at-home medication.

However, in fighting this scourge many nations have employed different models ranging from herd-immunity, to complete lockdown, self-isolation and the disinfection of towns and cities. Inasmuch as this has proven to be effective in Asia (China, Singapore, South Korea etc), America and Europe for the now in terms of containing the spread to a reasonable extent; how applicable is the models in Africa or countries like India? I am of the strong opinion that Africa especially Nigeria needs to develop a different model to tackle the spread of COVID-19 as the current lockdown or stay-at-home approach will fail in many ways.&nbsp;

For instance, not everyone has the means to afford standard apartments with the necessary essentials such as running taps, multiple rooms, toilets and bathrooms etc. However, vast majority can only afford single rooms in properties with over ten to fifteen rooms with access to a communal bathroom and toilet.

Oftentimes, you may have more than two individuals living in a single room. With this sort of peculiarities, and not leaving out the mode of our transport and open market system and of course the densely populated cities; the current lockdown will promote quicker infections in crowded properties such as the one explained above and by extension a rapid community spread of the virus. Vast majority of Nigerians are daily earners, and this is the only way they get-by on daily basis; how do we intend to lockdown these folks and keep them on lockdown for two weeks or more without necessary provisions?

Therefore, this is not the right model considering these peculiarities and challenges as a nation; and I do believe poor preparedness and panic led us in adopting this approach without a think through. What then is the best form of response in combination with social distancing (despite this might be difficult in our clime)?&nbsp;

I strongly believe schools should have been left opened especially those in boarding schools (primary and secondary), private universities and religious centre (this window is lost now). By allowing this schools to run would mean successful isolation of these set of individuals from the rest of the populace. Since they were never in close contact with the general public, all we would have done is run the inexpensive temperature checks on daily basis. You may wonder why religious centre should be allowed to run.

What Nigeria needs to adopt at this stage is the ability to test majority of her citizens through the constant monitoring of body temperature. One of the ways to achieve this is by asking individuals to attend religious centres closest to them (by attending religious centres I am not advocating for social gatherings, rather as testing centres and you leave almost immediately) and have their temperature checked (Monday, Wednesday and Sunday) for a period of two weeks.

Based on this simple but inexpensive temperature checks and the characteristic symptoms of COVID-19, we can detect individuals faster and subsequently isolate them for a proper COVID-19 screening, using the standard experimental process by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).&nbsp;

We've had massive monetary donations from individuals and cooperation. We need to use these funds judiciously through the recruitment of Life and Biological science graduates, trained for the sole purpose of COVID-19 screening. What we need right now is testing and continuous testing, starting with temperature monitoring and the examination of individuals for possible symptoms of COVID-19 at religious or other designated centres when people report for checks.

Again, a good reason why we need to test and continue testing is the case of Chioma, the betroth to the popular Afrobeat musician Davido. Think for a second if she was never tested, the virus would spread quietly within the immediate household, and by extension to the general public. COVID-19 is asymptomatic and not until fourteen days after contraction before any form of symptoms. And in some instance no sign of any symptoms (this will place people with underlying health condition or weakened immune system at greater risk) until it is completely cleared from the system. And if we do want to employ the lockdown strategy, we must infuse it with robust screening and testing of our citizens.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

In getting this done, the Federal government of Nigeria should stimulate the citizens using social intervention funds e.g. the direct payment of Ten thousand Naira or more into bank accounts of individuals with Bank Verification Number (BVN) and have successfully completed the first week of temperature check.

While this approach will help alleviate the current financial predicament of many Nigerians, it will also encourage vast majority of Nigerians to participate in the overall exercise. The payment should run weekly (and for six months) and in the first four weeks that is forty thousand Naira only! Now is the time for the Nigeria government to show social responsiveness and as a people we act responsively by adhering to relevant guidelines from the appropriate authorities.&nbsp;

PS: I do have reservations with the COVID-19 test kits supplies from China, however that is a writeup for another day. Kindly share your thoughts with me in the comment box below and above all ensure you stay safe. God bless you!&nbsp;

Research Fellow - Molecular Neuroscientist&nbsp;

School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition,

Work-profile: <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/peter.imoesi/">https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/peter.imoesi/</a>&nbsp;

Blog: <a href="http://www.pethianopeters.blogspot.com">www.pethianopeters.blogspot.com</a>&nbsp;

Email: <a href="mailto:peter.imoesi@abdn.ac.uk">peter.imoesi@abdn.ac.uk</a>

Follow my twitter handle&nbsp;@pethianopeters.

PI Imoesi, Ph.D. is a contributor on Pulse and this piece is an opinion of the writer.

COVID-19 and the peculiarity of Nigeria. [BBC]

In the last ninety days or so, the whole world has been completely thrown into chaos in something people thought was a form of joke in faraway China, and a few leaders and politicians said it was hoax.

COVID-19 and the peculiarity of Nigeria

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PI Imoesi

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Addressing COVID-19 stigmatisation in Nigeria

COVID-19 and the peculiarity of Nigeria