“COVID19 is not a hoax please stay safe” – Dr Francis

–       COVID19 will teach the government reasons to invest in the nation’s health care

Doctor Ani Francis is one revered medical practitioner with Faramed clinic in Ota, Ogun state Nigeria. He speaks on the state of the nation’s health during a health talk at Heal the World Movement

Can we meet you please?

I am Dr. Ani Francis.

Can you give us background information of what COVID19 is all about?

COVID19 is not an entirely new disease, viruses has always been there as a germ that causes illnesses. COVID19 particularly originated from China, it’s in the class of Corona viruses. We have the MARS and SARS but this particular COVID19 which originated from the city of Wuhan, China, it was identified on 31st of December 2019. So being from the family of Corona viruses it was so named and the 19 there was the year it was discovered and the city of Wuhan as the primary place of its origin.

How best can we control the spread of Coronavirus in our locality and as individual member of the society?

The best way to approach it is to improve our personal hygiene; the social distancing everybody is touting now should have always been there, I wonder how people enter buses and you see someone coughing and you can’t afford to cover your nose even if it is not Corona virus, any other upper respiratory tract infection could easily be transmitted to the next person through air droplets but because we have not always been serious with our health most of us Nigerians so that is why this days everyone is now talking about social distancing which should also be there, people are now talking about hand washing which should have always been there and things like wearing face mask and prompt attention to your health. Maybe someone at home discovered that the next person is having cough, fever or difficulty in breathing with other associated symptoms, you quickly respond which is what is not part of our culture before now, because people can afford to do self-medication, nobody was talking about going for screening test now, even malaria, people are not screening for malaria parasite because they can afford to go to the chemist and get one or two drugs mixed together. But now people are now talking about going to see if you can be screened. That is a miracle for us!

So I think at the end of it all Corona virus would have achieved a lot for Nigerians, because we would have improved on our personal hygiene and we would have as well improved our social life, the way it should be.

I will like you to shed light on this trending saying that Chloroquine is the cure for Coronavirus. Can this really be true?

Em we cannot really say it is the cure but what we can say is that the outcome of it being used has been very positive. Like I said earlier there is about 85% recovery from people that have used it so in that case we can conveniently say it is helpful but not the cure and like I use to say when there is a pandemic like this the best and ultimate way out has always been to discover a vaccine for it so that you prevent people that have not gotten it from getting it while you as well look for the cure so that you cure people that have already gotten it. If you take it from these two ends of curative and preventive measures, you will be able to arrive at a point which is the eradication.

So what is the stand of World Health Organization (WHO), being the apex health body in the world on the cure for COVID? Have they spoken anything yet on Chloroquine to be the cure for it?

Well what I will say about World Health Organization is that as an organization, they seem to be overwhelmed. If I may be right it is now going to individual nations looking for a way out. What WHO does is to oversee the individual activity of health organization of each nation, so any nation like Nigeria that has been sleeping and taking their health sector for granted will pay for it because now the disease is affecting everyone so WHO, I am saying it again is overwhelmed in this scenario because it is a pandemic. So now come to the cure; every nation and every serious nation is making effort to discover the cure for this virus but none has come out to say that (because it takes time, every drug discovered will have to go through some processes) we have certified and verified this drug to be curative for Corona virus but let me bring it down home, as a Nigerian I am saying it again that probably this corona virus will teach us, not us but the government reasons to invest in the nation’s health care   

So what will be your advice to people at home reading this blogpost. What will you say should be their best practice against COVID19?

The best practice for people at home first is to stay safe. Don’t think this is not real, don’t think COVID19 is just a fallacy or that is a hoax, it is not a hoax. It is real. Social distancing, regular hand washing, personal hygiene. If you see someone coughing around you, please caution the person possibly if it is a relative, isolate the person. If you are the one coughing, protect yourself and people around you. Use your mask; regular hand washing cannot be overemphasized at a time like this. So people at home reading this blog post I want you to take this seriously. Don’t see it as one of those things that will come and go. Although it will come and go, but make sure it doesn’t go with you.