Panic hits West Africa as Nigeria records region’s first case of coronavirus

There is panic in West Africa following the report in the region of the first case of coronavirus (Covid-19) in Nigeria. The viral disease which started in China’s Wuhan region in December 2019, has so far infected some 100,000 people around the world and killed some 3,000. Nearly 30,000 people have reportedly recovered from the disease with one case of a patient in Japan getting re-infected.

China has recorded more than 78,000 cases.

The patient diagnosed in Nigeria has been identified as an Italian woman who had arrived in Lagos from Milan, according to Nigeria minister of health, Osagie Ehanire. The Italian lives in Lagos and had returned from Milan after a visit.

“The patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms, and and is being managed at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos,” Ehanire said in a statement.

Thursday February 27, the World Health Organisation (WHO) head, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, warned that the outbreak of the disease has reached a ‘decisive point’ and has pandemic potential.

China, Iran, Italy, Japan, South Korea are battling the disease as cases in Germany and France have doubled following the report of the first case in Hamburg. The United States has confirmed its first Covid-19 case, described as of unknown origin in California. The patient has contracted the disease with no knowledge of the source.

Nigeria becomes the third country in Africa after Egypt and Algeria to report the disease.

Between 2013 and 2016, West Africa suffered the Ebola pandemic. Liberia and Senegal were hard hit. By the end of the pandemic which started from Guinea, 28,600 cases were reported and there were 11,325 deaths.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

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