The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Thursday stressed the need for corps members to adhere strictly to protocols designed to prevent contracting coronavirus, just as he stated that there had not been any known cure for the disease yet.
The NCDC team leader at the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Ondo Camp, Mr. Philips Olusola, gave the warning during a sensitisation lecture to corps members currently undergoing orientation at the NYSC permanent orientation camp, Ikare Akoko, Ondo State.
He warned that the disease remained a highly transmittable one.
According to him, COVID-19 is a pathogenic viral infection caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and spread to other parts of the world within a space of three months.
“Genomic analysis revealed that SARS-CoV-2 is phylogenetically related to severe acute respiratory syndrome-like (SARS-like) bat viruses, therefore bats could be the possible primary reservoir,” he asserted.
“The intermediate source of origin and transfer to human beings is not known, however, the rapid human to human transfer has been confirmed widely. There is no clinically approved antiviral drug or vaccine available to be used against COVID-19. Meanwhile, few broad-spectrum antiviral drugs have been evaluated against COVID -19 in clinical trials, resulted in clinical recovery,” he announced.
Olusola further explained the transmission and characteristics of human coronaviruses while emphasising the uncompromising use of face mask, ensuring hands were washed regularly under running water for at least twenty seconds as well as maintaining a social distance of at least two metres within and even outside the camp community.
The medical professional who demanded that certain unfounded stories and myth surrounding the killer disease should be dropped, appealed to corps members to take responsibility for their well being by keeping faith with the protocols propounded by both the Presidential Task Force on COVID -19 and NCDC.
He, however appealed to the corps members to dissociate themselves from conspiracy theories flooding the media space that Ondo State had one of the highest infection rates in the country.
He said the Zoomorphic disease, as at Thursday, stood at a confirmed cases of 65,839 while 61,573 had been discharged and a total of 1,163 mortality.
Olusola expressed great hopes in the world’s medical researches and remained optimistic that a sustainable vaccine and cure would soon be discovered.
