By Chuks Ezewuzie ESQ.
The Executive Governor of Anambra state, His Excellency, Chief.Dr. Sir. Willie Mmaduaburochukwu Obiano has inaugurated the disability community COVID-19 Response Team in Anambra State.
In his message to the persons with disabilities in Anambra state, the Governor (ogugua ndi-olusi) stated that ‘‘the relaxation of the lock down measure and the resumption of work should by no means be interpreted as battle over with Coronavirus.
In fact, the fight against this pandemic will be intensified with the recommended measures keeping in mind the economic and social wellbeing of Ndi-Anambra.”
The prophetic Willie has again spoken prophetically because the same day, shortly after the inauguration of the disability community COVID-19 Response Team, the NCDC announced another COVID-19 case in Anambra state.
This novel Coronavirus is far more unpredictable than a simple respiratory virus.
According to the publication by the Washington post, there are millions and perhaps billions of corona viruses, of which only six where previously known to infect humans.
Four of them cause common cold that spreads easily during winter. The fifth was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003 that killed 774 people. The sixth one caused MERS in 2012 which killed 34% of the people infected. The seventh one is this corona virus which is the bad seed of the corona virus family.
It has combined the infectiousness of the cold causing cousin with some of the dangerous impact of SARS and MERS. It can spread before people show symptoms making it more difficult to control especially without wide spread and accurate testing.
This virus, now called COVID-19, often attacks the lungs but it can also strike anywhere from the brain to the toes.
Many doctors are focused on treating the inflammatory reaction that it triggers and its capacity to cause blood clot even as they struggle to help patients’ breathe. There is little research to guide the study of the nature, characteristics and activities of this virus which was unknown before six months ago.
The World Health organization (WHO) database list almost 15,000 papers on COVID-19. Even the world premier public health agencies including various centers for disease control (CDCs) have continued to alter their advice and guidance to keep pace with new development.
More than 4months of clinical experience across Asia, Europe and North America has shown that this pathogen does much more than invade the lungs.
It attacks the heart, weakening its muscles and disrupting its critical rhythm. It savages kidney so badly that some hospitals are running further dialysis equipment. Its crawls along the nervous system destroying taste and smell and occasionally reaching the brain, it creates blood clots that can kill with sudden efficiency. It inflames blood vessels throughout the body. It can give a few symptoms or nothing at all.
Many days later, it will squeeze the air out of the lungs without warning. It picks on the elderly, people weakened by previous diseases and disproportionately, the obese. It harms men far more than women, but this invisible enemy is also complicating many pregnancies and killing off women in their prime as they labour. COVID-19 mostly spares the young until it doesn’t.
Doctors have warned that the rare inflammatory reaction and cardiac complication among children may be connected to the virus. A routine gastro intestinal symptom may turn into inflammatory complication which can cause very low blood pressure and affect the blood vessel leading to heart failure. The pattern of the disease in kids is different from that of the adult which is of great concern to the practitioners on the front line of the fight. At the moment social distancing is the only counter measure.
Experts say it will be years until it fully understood how this disease damages organs and how generic medication, diet and distancing impacts its cause.
In the initial days of the outbreak most of the effort and focus was on the lungs. This virus infects mostly upper and the lower respiratory tracts eventually working its way deep in the lungs filling tiny air sacs with cells and fluids that shut off the flow of oxygen. .
But many scientists are coming recently with belief that much of the disease devastation actually comes from two intertwined causes.
The first, is the harm the virus brings on blood vessels within the clot that can range from microscopic to sizeable. Patients have suffered stroke and pulmonary embolisms as clots break loose and travel to the brain and the lungs.
The study of the British medical journals show that this may be because the virus directly targets the cells that line blood vessels. Inflammation of those cells may help to explain why the virus harms so many parts of the body.
The second dynamics is the exaggerated response from the body’s own immune system a storm of killer cytokine that attack the body’s own cells along with the virus which seeks to defend the body from against an invader.
Researchers and therapists have focused on these two phenomena. Blood thinners have been widely used in some hospitals to prevents clotting. Researchers have found that this disease starts as a viral infection and becomes global disturbance to the immune system and blood vessels that is exactly how it kills.
The hypothesis is that COVID-19 is not so much of a respiratory virus than a cardiovascular virus. This means that defeating COVID-19 will require more than anti-viral therapy.
Social distancing, touted as the only solution has its own limitation. Besides the difficulty in maintaining social distancing, researchers have shown that respiratory droplets form human speeches linger in the air for eight minutes and potentially much longer. The louder the speech the more the droplet. Group meetings even with social distancing saturate the air with these droplets and it gets worst with a singing group.
This underscores the importance of a protective face mask. The inhalation of these droplets spreads Coronavirus. This explains why infections of corona virus cluster in confined spaces with limited air circulation.
The above account of the Washington Post Publication reveals the necessity and urgency for all to engage COVID-19 head-on.
Social distancing, in spite of its shortcomings, may be a temporary solution. Scientists and our local traditional herbalists must intensify efforts in the search for a permanent solution.
If we must defeat this pandemic, we must all do our best to be part of the solution by taking charge of our own individual safety and the safety of our household.
We must not provide a parking space for Covid-19. Irrespective of your status, privileged or vulnerable, sick or healthy, it is time to take sides in this battle.
‘‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’’ here is your checklist:
Do you wear good protective face mask when you step out of the house?
Do you have a bucket of running water in front of your house?
Do you have liquid soap next to it?
Do you regularly wash your hands for at least 20seconds?
Do you regularly apply good hand sanitizer?
Do you sneeze or cough into your folded elbow?
Do you practice social distancing?
Do you insist that every member of your household does all of the above?
If you say yes to all of the above, you are battle-ready against Covid-19 but if you say no to any of the above, consider yourself a compromising traitor.
Let us cooperate with our commander, the working and winning Willie, then we can say, like the NCDC, ‘‘it’s okay!’’
Chuks Ezewuzie ESQ. (SPAD) is the Special Adviser to Governor of Anambra State on Disability Matters