Nigeria Confirms first Coronavirus Case in Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigeria has reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa, as investor alarm over a potential global pandemic deepened stock market losses around the world.
Nigerian officials said the case involved an Italian citizen who entered the country on 24 February on a Turkish Airlines flight from Milan via Istanbul.
The virus has proliferated around the globe over the past week, emerging in every continent except Antarctica, prompting many governments and businesses to try to stop people travelling or gathering in crowded places.
Switzerland became the latest country to announce drastic measures on Friday, saying all events with more than 1,000 participants would be suspended until 15 March. The ban forced the cancellation of next week’s Geneva international motor show – a major fixture on the global car industry.
The Nigerian case is just the third to be confirmed in Africa, something that has puzzled health specialists given the continent’s close ties to China.
According to Nigerian officials, the Italian man stayed in a hotel near the airport on the evening of 24 February, then continued to his place of work in neighbouring Ogun state. He was treated on 26 February at his company’s medical facility before health practitioners there called government biosecurity officers, who transferred him on 27 February to a containment facility in Yaba, Lagos. He was clinically stable with no serious symptoms, authorities said.
This month the World Health Organization warned that porous borders, a continuing flow of travellers and poorly resourced healthcare systems meant the risk of an outbreak across Africa was “very, very high” and raised significant concerns about the ability of “fragile health systems” to cope.
In recent weeks testing regimes and isolation facilities have been reinforced and there has been work on public messaging.
“Nigeria has dramatically improved its ability to manage the outbreak of a major pandemic since the Ebola scare in west Africa in 2014,” Folasade Ogunsola, the professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Lagos, wrote on the Conversation website. “Any of the lessons from keeping the country free of Ebola have informed the steps taken since the news of the coronavirus epidemic first broke.”
There is anxiety in many countries, despite reinforced protective measures. In Kenya there has been a backlash against authorities who allowed the first direct flight from China in two weeks. The high court ordered flights from China to be temporarily suspended.
