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Academy of Medicine Specialties Say Third Wave Covid-19 Imminent, Asks Nigeria Government to Shut International Airports
The Academy of Medicine Specialties of Nigeria says a third wave of Covid-19 pandemic could be very imminent and could also prompt a very disastrous situation for the West African country.
To prevent a third wave, President of the Academy, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru has called on the federal government to shut the country’s international airports for at least two weeks.
“The third wave could be very imminent and that is a very disastrous situation and that is why we are raising this alarm now so that government should do something,” Ashiru, a professor of Anatomy and a Consultant Reproductive Endocrinologist said when he appeared on ARISE News on Tuesday.
“When you ignore science, you do that at your own peril and we are telling government to do something to ensure that they can control the influx from India.
“This people now are going to come back from their vacation, they’ve gone for this holiday to celebrate this festival and they are coming back into the country and some of them are even able to I hear bribe their way through different situations.
“So if we do not make sure that when they come back that we have a module to control to ensure that they are quarantined and they do genuine tests to ensure that they are negative before they can go into the community, we’ll have a problem in our hands.
“That strain that they have is a very violent strain as you can see the manifestations. This current strain which is a mutated strain is difficult and we think it could be a triple mutation in which the protein that is carrying the virus is able to alter regularly. So these are the things that we need to do to stem it off, if we do not do it we’ll have problems in our hands.”
The Academy had issued an urgent advisory on Sunday where it noted that the ongoing transmission in the country was caused largely by those inbound passengers from India and those countries with surges in the cases reported daily.
According to him, many of them travelled into Nigeria through indirect flights, but recommended that Nigeria’s testing strategy should still be PCR-based.
He recommended that Nigeria should close the international airports to all flights for at least two weeks, stressing that the third wave was affecting not only India but France, Germany, and Italy.
Ashiru also called on the federal government to be proactive. He said: “Nigeria cannot afford to have a third wave. Only a small percentage of the population has been vaccinated.
“Furthermore, all the theories speculated for our immunity such as heat, sun, and other endemic immunities also apply to India.”
By Abel Ejikeme
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