People may have COVID-19 without signs and symptoms – Expert
Prof. Sunday Omilabu
A Medical virologist, working with the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Prof. Sunday Omilabu, has revealed that many people may have COVID-19 without showing signs and symptoms, saying there is possibility for us having community transmission and called on Nigerians to embrace precautionary measures to avoid community transmission.
Prof. Omilabu made the disclosure on Thursday during an online interaction with members of the Health Writers Association of Nigeria (HEWAN) to give update on COVID-19 pandemic.
According to him, “when we have so many travelers from Europe, United States of America (USA), China and all those countries where there have been reported and confirmed cases of outbreak of COVID-19 disease already in Nigeria and many of them are carrying the virus.
“There is possibility for us having the community transmission and that’s why it’s more important that we isolate ourselves, we maintain social distancing to prevent possibly acquisition of the virus from those individuals.
“Many people may have the virus without showing signs and symptoms. Already they are in our communities so we need to be very careful to avoid contracting the virus,” he said
The Prof. who emphasized the need to stay away from crowd and imbibe social distancing in order not to get infected said, “We need to stay away from crowd so that we don’t get infected. Its been shown that many people don’t show signs and symptoms and they still transmit the virus so that is why it is important we stay away from crowd and that is why there is a lockdown so that we confine ourselves to our own houses and we should think outside the box to find some other engagements that we can do in our own houses, in our own environment that will be better for us.
On why Nigerian scientists have not been able to develop vaccine for the treatment of COVID-19, the Prof said development of medical vaccine apart from being cost intensive and require a lot of resources, needs an enabling environment adding that Nigeria as a country is not buoyant enough for such venture.
“On why Nigerian Scientists have not been able to develop vaccine for COVID-19 is that there is no enabling environment in Nigeria. If you want to develop the vaccine, you need a lot of resources and of course there must be enough funds to provide all these resources and in this country, we know that our economy is not buoyant to afford that.
“And, of course, the manufacturers are also not encouraged to bring their resources to carry out such development. It is a huge capital intensive and our industrialists so to say, are not ready to put their money into such venture that would take several years before it can be licensed for commercial purposes.
“It takes minimum of 10 to 15 years before a good vaccine is made available. Those are some of the issues surrounding why medical scientists in Nigeria are not venturing into vaccine production
