By Dr. Dons Eze
The world is now in serious danger as a result of the current coronavirus, also COVID-19 epidemic that is ravaging everywhere. It has never been so for a very long time.
From Asia to Europe, to America, to Australia, the disease has entered the African continent, and to Nigeria in particular. Thousands of people have been infected, and thousands have also died.
Everybody is in a state of panic, worried, both the highly placed, and the lowly placed as well. Nobody knows who will be the next victim and what is going to be his fate in the next moment. Nobody wants to die.
For Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people, coronavirus is a threat, a very big challenge. If urgent measures are not taken, what is currently happening in countries like China, Italy, Spain, Iran, the United States of America, etc., where hundreds of people die every day, will be a child's play.
This is because of the very poor health facilities and medications available in Nigeria, coupled with the vast illiteracy of the people, lack of awareness creation by government as well as the superstitious beliefs among millions of Nigerians.
Thus, in the light of the ongoing challenges posed by coronavirus epidemic and the urgent need to ensure that Nigeria is minimally infected with the disease, the African Development Institute of Research Methodology (ADIRM), has decided to collaborate with the government to ensure the containment of the spread of the pandemic in the country
The African Development Institute of Research Methodology (ADIRM), is a development and research group, comprising of professors both within and outside Nigeria in the areas of public health, food and agriculture, environment and management studies, peace and conflict resolution, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The research and development projects of the group which are need-driven and tailored toward solving societal problems in collaboration with government is aimed at creating value-adding products and services based on innovative research, development and training programmes.
According to the Director of the group, Professor Ike Oluka, ADIRM, in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, has so far trained private healthcare workers on infection prevention and control.
It has also recruited and trained volunteers who are all graduates, and who will be paid N30,000 monthly stipend. These volunteers will assist in dissemination of COVID-19 information in all the nooks and crannies of the South East zone of the country, and Enugu State, in particular.
The group has equally procured three toll free phone lines to receive calls on situation reports across the State, and
has developed a protocol to guide health care workers on screening, identification and notification of suspected cases of COVID-19.
He further stated that handbills, posters and banners for the protocol had been produced and would be donated to the Enugu State Ministry of Health, while twenty Veronica buckets (wash hand stand with bucket and bowls) for use by secondary healthcare facilities, had equally been procured.
Professor Ike Oluka also stated that ADIRM had reproduced NCDC COVID-19 information, education and communication materials for dissemination, while it had assembled an emergency preparedness and response team that could augment the government team, and procured some personal protective equipment for donation to the state ministry of health to augment what they already had.
He explained that members of ADIRM who are volunteers and professionals in their respective fields were ever ready and prepared at all times to give back to society anything they could, to ensure that Nigeria takes its proper place in the scheme of things. Dr. Dons Eze.
