TEDROS Adhanom Ghebryesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday during the daily briefings since the outbreak of novel coronavirus said that public health officials are operating in “uncharted territory” as the number of affected persons increases to over 90,000 across 73 countries and territories.
Since the outbreak which originated in Wuhan China late December 2019, the virus has spread to every continent except Antarctica after the first cases in Africa–Nigeria, Algeria, and Egypt over the past weeks.
Ghebryesus in a Tweet on Monday said that to defeat the virus, an understanding of the epidemic would be instrumental.
“We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures,” he said.
After six deaths in the United States as a result of the virus, the number of deaths outside of mainland China, according to the WHO, totalled 172 while the global death toll was said to be 3, 115.
Knowing & understanding an epidemic is the first step to defeating it.
We are in unchartered territory with #COVID19. We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures.— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 2, 2020
Nonetheless, Maurice Iwu a Nigerian professor of Pharmacognosy, and former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) claim that Nigeria has a possible cure for the virus.
Iwu, made this disclosure on Monday in Abuja while briefing Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Minister of Science and Technology, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of State for Health, and Barrister Mohammed Abdullahi the Minister of State for Science and Technology.
The professor who heads a bio-science institute said the US Government has reached out to him to take the discovered compound and test it against the COVID-19 virus.
“On Thursday last week, the US Government contacted me and we signed a non-clinical evaluation agreement for us to take this product forward and we are trying to see how we can test this compound immediately against this new virus.
“They are trying set up so we can see if this particular one is inferior to SARS so that the programme will be able to go on,” he said.
The first case of coronavirus in Nigeria was imported by an Italian expatriate who flew into the country via the Turkish airlines last week.
Although the infected Lafarge consultant has been quarantined, the Nigerian government is yet to locate all 158 passengers aboard the aircraft alongside the coronavirus patient.