Amid growing fears that the outbreak of the Corona virus aka COVID-19 would erode investments in the country, following the precipitous drop in global oil prices with benchmark Brent crude dropping 14% last week to its lowest levels since July 2017, closing Friday at $50.52 a barrel, below Nigeria’s 2020 budget benchmark of $57 per barrel; President Muhammadu Buhari at the weekend expressed sadness over the index case of Coronavirus in Lagos, admonishing citizens not to panic, and urging both local and foreign investors not to fret.
With the viral outbreak spreading to more countries, the president, in a statement by presidential spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, lamented the incident despite what he described as the level of preparation against it. According to the statement, the president commended the Federal Ministry of Health and other agencies whose efficiency, he said, helped in swift diagnosis, isolation and follow up on the matter. According to the statement, the president praised the governments of Ogun and Lagos States as well as some citizens for their vigilance and prompt responses to the incident.
Nigeria on Thursday confirmed its first case of coronavirus disease in Lagos State, stirring memories of the fears sparked six years ago when West Africa’s Ebola epidemic hit the chaotic megacity of Lagos with 20 million people. Immediately, shops in the China Commercial City shopping centre in Ojota in Lagos were deserted as people fear of contracting the coronavirus. The shopping centre, popularly known as China Town, with over 300 shops and 200 apartment units was opened in 2005 with the aim to facilitate trade and deepen Sino– Nigeria relationships, but has since the outbreak of the virus witnessed low patronage by traders.
By this confirmation, Nigeria became the third country in Africa to have a confirmed case of Coronavirus aside Egypt and Algeria and the first in West Africa. The patient is an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria who returned from Milan to Lagos on the 25th of February 2020. He was confirmed by the Virology Laboratory at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, which is part of the Laboratory Network at the Nigeria Center for Disease Control. The federal government machinery went into overdrive working to identify all the persons who had contacts with the Italian citizen. Health Minister, Dr. Osagie Ehanire who disclosed this in a statement noted that the patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms and is being managed at the infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos.
While advising against panicking over the index case, Buhari said raising alarm over the incident would do more harm than good. Instead, he encouraged Nigerians to heed the advisories issued by both the Federal Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as being aired by the Federal Ministry of Information.
The president spoke after global stock markets plummeted for a seventh consecutive day last Friday, due to the deadly virus. This was just as the Nigerian equities market declined, with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (NSE ASI) falling by 9.1%, while market capitalization lost N1.119 trillion; forcing the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to come out and declare that there is no cause for alarm.
Emefiele, who described the situation as an unfortunate incident which has taken the global economy by surprise, expressed optimism that countries were making efforts to see to its fast eradication. “However, as a result of this, we have seen that the global stock market in the last one week has suffered drastic decline as a result of the widespread of the virus in different parts of the world, which has unfortunately affected the price of crude oil.” According to him, Nigeria being an oil exporting country would naturally be affected as a result of the drop in the price of crude oil. But he noted that the disease was a temporary phenomenon, adding that its effect on the Nigerian economy would be very minimal.
Meanwhile, the federal government has activated all airport-specific Public Health Emergency Contingency Plans (PHECPs) as part of efforts to reduce the spread of Coronavirus in Nigeria. The Director General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu, said in a statement that travelers returning from countries experiencing community transmission of Coronavirus must present themselves to Port Health Services on arrival at the Point of Entry.
Nuhu advised airlines and other airport users to heed the guidance of Port Health Services on the use of screening forms, assessment of suspect or sick travelers and any other measures they may adopt. The NCAA boss advised the travelling public to remain calm and alert, take necessary precaution in protecting themselves while travelling, including alerting crew members and airport facilitation staff to travelers that may look ill or showing signs and symptoms of the disease.
The low number of cases so far across Africa, which has close economic ties with China, the epicenter of the deadly outbreak, has puzzled health specialists. Prior to the case in Nigeria, there had been just two cases on the continent – in Egypt and Algeria. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with some 190 million people, is viewed as one of the world’s most vulnerable to the spread of the virus given its fragile health system and high population density. It would be recalled that the World Health Organization (WHO) designated Nigeria as high in a risk assessment on Coronavirus primarily because of the frequent travels between China and Nigeria.
The global health body revealed that it was focusing its efforts on eight states and Abuja that have ports of entry either by air or water. The states include Lagos, Kano, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Delta and Bayelsa states. Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control says that three laboratories in the country have the capacity to diagnose the virus and that health officials have been meeting daily to share intelligence.
Situated in a tropical regional not far from the equator, Nigeria has had to face the threat of multiple contagious diseases. An outbreak of Lassa fever, which is spread mainly through rat faeces and urine, has killed over 100 people across the country since the start of the year. In 2014, the first case of Ebola confirmed in Lagos from the outbreak that swept West Africa set off alarm bells across the globe and unleashed a wave of panic among Lagosians. In the end Lagos escaped relatively lightly and only seven people died from a total of 19 infected, a number dwarfed by the overall toll of 11,000 deaths across the region from 2013 to 2016.
