![]() The Nigerian government has taken numerous health, social, and economic measures to cushion the impact of COVID-19 (Figure 3). However, many of the northern, southwestern, and southeastern states are now seeing an increase in the number of cases, and as of Jthere are more than 100 reported COVID-19 cases in each of the states of Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Oyo, Ogun, Kwara, Edo, Delta, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe, and Borno. These states account for about 54 percent of total confirmed cases, and 29 percent of deaths. The three states with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases are Lagos (10,510 cases, 128 deaths), the Federal Capital Territory (1,870 cases, 33 deaths), and Oyo (1,380 cases, 12 deaths). Total confirmed cases in Nigeria as of June 22, 2020 There has been a continuous rise in the number of cases and deaths in Nigeria, and no flattening of the curve has yet been observed. ![]() In April 2020, the country acquired 100 more ventilators, but given the growing caseload, this will not be enough. ![]() Nigeria had just 350 ventilators and 350 ICU beds for its entire population before the outbreak. As of June 30, only 138,462 samples had been tested in Nigeria for a population of 200 million in contrast, South Africa-a country of 58 million people-has already conducted 1,630,008 tests. Nigeria currently has the capacity to test only 2,500 samples a day, and just half of these are actually administered each day because of the shortage of human resources, testing kits, and laboratories, and case definition for testing that prioritizes symptomatic cases and their contacts. This is most obviously evident from the low testing rates for COVID-19 in the country. These scores suggest that Nigeria is not prepared to respond to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Source: Authors, using data from World Health Organization (2017). Nigeria’s average score on preparedness to tackle public health risks The country performed badly in the respond category, with an average score of just 1.5 across the 20 indicators in this category, suggesting that Nigeria has limited capacity to respond to a sudden health risk.įigure 1.However, the sustainability of these capabilities is still in doubt. This score shows that the country has developed some capabilities to detect new health risks through real-time surveillance, and laboratory capabilities to test the diseases. The country was better prepared in the detect category, with an average score of 2.6 across the 13 indicators in this category.Nigeria’s average score of 1.9 across the 15 JEE indicators in the prevent category suggested that overall there was limited capacity to prevent biological, chemical, or radiation health risk.In 2017, during the WHO’s Joint External Evaluation (JEE) of IHR core capacities (an independent, collaborative multi-sectoral effort to assess a country’s capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health risks), Nigeria scored poorly both in prevention and response. Coordinator, Health Policy Research Group, College of Medicine - University of Nigeria, Nsukka Is Nigeria prepared to respond effectively to pandemics? ![]()
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