Nigerians are feeling a sense of whiplash as leaders scramble to account for a surge in Covid cases and a rise in hospital admissions. As the third wave gradually becomes the pandemic of the unvaccinated, Nigeria’s fight against Covid-19 is being stalled by the lack of an immediate plan to vaccinate the remaining 110 million eligible citizens. Nigeria, like other countries across the world, is at risk of a surge in Covid-19 cases, given the detection of the Delta variant, this is according to Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the NCDC,
As the Delta variant spreads faster, it is even more important to adhere to precautionary measures. Following the surge, the nation’s capital and six states were placed on ‘red alert’ by a presidential committee on Covid-19 that announced stiffer measures to mitigate the spread of the virus.
It is indeed a worrying time for many governments involved in the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in preventing the spread of new variants and racing to get as many people fully vaccinated as possible. But long before that, Evidence that we are on the verge of a third wave, not just in Nigeria but globally, mounted, with much of the attention on Lagos, where news of the potential third wave was first announced, and where the rate of positive test went up from 1.1% at the end of June 2021 to 6.6% by 8 July. Nigeria exhausted the four million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine received from the COVAX initiative with only less than 2% of the 112 million eligible population able to take the vaccine.
With Lagos – which reportedly accounts for 32% of Nigeria’s total gross domestic product (GDP) – now in the spotlight, the country will have to deal with another tough decision if infections continue to surge rapidly: Will the decision be to prioritise protection of its citizens or the economy?
But while countries continue to look inwards and protect only their own populations, this virus is likely to find fertile breeding grounds in countries that are unable to vaccinate their people at the same rates, resulting in further variants arising. We need to break the chain between infections and hospital admissions, and the only way to do this is to vaccinate the world’s population. If people are protected against serious disease by vaccines, then we can suppress and then live alongside the virus with regular booster shots for future variants. If countries continue to be nationalistic about vaccines, a third wave is looking more and more likely in a world where people move relatively easily from continent to continent, so while vaccinating your own country might buy time, we need to vaccinate globally to solve this pandemic.
