As much as we may want to cast aside developments on the coronavirus front, we must reflect on its spread, and steps now being taken to fight it around the world.
The World Health Organization reported on Saturday that two new countries (Lebanon and Israel) reported cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.
It made a point that the role of environmental contamination in the transmission of COVID-19 was not yet clear.
The WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus briefed the emergency ministerial meeting on COVID-19 organised by the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
He made some interesting remarks.
“It’s hard to believe that only 52 days ago, WHO’s country office in China was notified of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan city.
“In just seven weeks, this outbreak has captured the world’s attention, and rightly so, because it has the potential to cause severe political, social and economic upheaval,” he said.
He reiterated major concerns that the virus could spread to countries with weaker health systems.
China, he stated, had reported 75,569 cases to WHO, including 2239 deaths.
Interestingly, the data from China, he stated, continued to show a decline in new cases.
This, he said, was welcome news, “but it must be interpreted very cautiously. It’s far too early to make predictions about this outbreak”.
Outside China, we are told, there are now 1200 cases in 26 countries, with eight deaths as of Saturday.
He raised another interesting point, that “although the total number of cases outside China remains relatively small, we are concerned about the number of cases with no clear epidemiological link, such as travel history to China or contact with a confirmed case”.
“With every day that passes, we know a little bit more about this virus, and the disease it causes.
“We know that more than 80 per cent of patients have mild disease and will recover.
“But the other 20 per cent of patients have severe or critical disease, ranging from shortness of breath to septic shock and multi-organ failure.
“In 2 per cent of reported cases, the virus is fatal, and the risk of death increases the older a patient is, and with underlying health conditions.
“We see relatively few cases among children. More research, of course, is needed to understand why.”
As countries around the world keep a tab on the spread of the virus, we will, once more, place our hope on the powers that be.
They have a huge task of ensuring our safety in the face of the global outbreak.
They have a duty to be proactive, and vigilant.
We are reminded about what Mr Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, that the increasing signs of transmission outside China show that the window of opportunity we have for containing this virus is narrowing.
He urged all countries to invest urgently in preparedness, to take advantage of the window of opportunity that is available, to attack the virus outbreak with a sense of urgency.
