The pandemic COVID-19 is one whose impact is unparalleled in history. Although advances in technology has helped in containment, the pandemic spread still poses a strong challenge. This has resulted in countries of the world gathering resources, both intellectual and financial, to combat a common enemy. In spite of this, there appears to be an increase in the spread globally with countries recording daily deaths and increases of up to a thousand and more. Reports indicate that the countries most affected by this pandemic are located in Europe and North America (World Health Organisation, 2020).
According to Shereen et al (2020), the first known occurrence of the virus began in December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province of China. It began as a form of pneumonic cases in the province. The cases were reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) country office and it was discovered to be a new strain of the SARS-CoV virus of 2002. The name Covid-19 was given to the virus by the WHO on the 11th of February, 2020. It is an acronym which stands for CoronaVirus Disease of 2019. The symptoms associated with the disease were common to that of the common cold. They include fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of smell. However, the complications are of a greater degree than the symptoms as it could lead to pneumonia, viral sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, kidney failure, etc. The complications over time have been said to worsen based on the health status of the individual. (Sohrabi, 2020)
The virus is not airborne but can be spread in various ways. It is primarily spread amongst people during close contact. If droplets from infected persons fall on surfaces, people could get infected by touching an already contaminated surface. Various studies have shown that the half-life of the virus outside the human body is temperature and humidity dependent, hence, different regions can have different rates of spread. (Cortegiani, 2020) (Luo, 2020)
The best method of control is to keep safe distance from infected persons, constant washing of the hands and cleaning of possibly contaminated surfaces. The symptoms are irregular, so it is difficult to clearly identify an infected person without testing. The presence of these silent carriers have increased the spread. There are three categories of the silent carriers according to (Lauer, 2020).
They are;
- Asymptomatic: people who carry the active virus in their body but never develop any symptoms.
- Presymptomatic: people who have been infected and are incubating the virus but don’t yet show symptoms.
- Very mildly symptomatic: people who feel a little unwell from a Covid-19 infection but continue to come in close contact with others. The infection potential of these silent carriers is yet to be ascertained, therefore, social distancing has been strongly encouraged.
The pandemic and its effects are evident in every country, thereby necessitating different nations to provide contextual solutions to manage the situation while awaiting a vaccine. This study aims to estimate the potential spread through the evaluation of the evolution and the corresponding response of Nigeria to the COVID-19 in her territory.