Beware, There Is A Coronavirus Resurgence In Nigeria – FG

The Federal Government has come out to express concern at the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Chairman of the Presidential Taskforce PTF on COVID-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Mr Boss Mustapha recently revealed this today.

According to him, the earlier decision to reopen the economy might now have to be reviewed, because the nation is presently at risk.

He added that we have witnessed spikes in the number of infections at home and abroad, and the threat is still very much there against humanity.

His words, “We have witnessed spikes in the number of infections at home and abroad. The real threat is upon humanity and the progress made in the global health sector in the last five decades or more.

“In Nigeria, the indication is that we have entered the second wave of infections and we stand the risk of not just losing the gains from the hard work of the last nine months but also not losing the precious lives of our citizens. The PTF believes that if we do the right things, adhere to the NPIs and step up our testing and detection, loss of lives will be minimized and the rising curve will begin to flatten out.

“Last Tuesday, the PTF held the end of the term technical session. It afforded the PTF the opportunity to assess the progress made and the present dangers that confront us. The Report of the PTF will be submitted to the President on Tuesday, 22nd December 2020.

“Current realities, however, point to the fact that the course of further opening up of the economy may have to be reviewed.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.