New Telegraph

Lockdown averted 5.8m COVID-19 infections in Nigeria –Study

A study conducted by a team of international public health researchers has shown that the lockdown and restrictions imposed by the Federal Government in 2020 may have helped to avert no fewer than 5.8 million COVID-19 infections in the country.

The researchers are drawn from institutions in three countries – Parexel International, Harvard University and Holly Hill hospital in the United States; Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in South Africa; Benue State University, Universities of Ibadan, Lagos and Calabar in Nigeria. The closures and restrictions were initiated on March 30, 2020 and partially eased on May 4, 2020.

The researchers used sophisticated statistical techniques to analyse NCDC data on daily infection counts, anonymized Google mobility data from Nigeria covering about 40 million individuals who activated location history on their smartphone Google accounts and publicly available information on the lockdown such as dates for initiating and partially easing the lockdown The cross-sectional study found that governmentmandated closures and restrictions in Nigeria owing to COVID-19 was associated with significantly reduced aggregate mobility everywhere except in residential areas and may have averted up to 5.8 million corona virus infections.

Additionally, they found that community spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria may have been faster in residential areas, transit stations such as motor parks and workplaces including likely venues of social events.

Based on result of their findings, the researchers backed the use of restricted mobility as an effective measure for infection control in Nigeria, noting that even during the lockdown and restrictions, noticeable spikes in people’s movement occurred on Saturdays and Sundays, which could be attributed to social events such as parties also known as Ówàmb and religious activities.

A statement, which had Dr. Daniel Erim as well as Prof. Lekan Ayo-Yusuf and Dr. Kemi Odukoya listed, noted that the findings were based on information from confirmed COVID-19 cases provided by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) from February 27 to July 21, 2020 and Nigeria specific mobility data from Google in same period, which was published by the highly reputable public health journal, JAMA Network Open.

The researchers explained that their work was motivated by the need to better understand how the lockdown affected people’s movement and community spread of COVID-19, adding that the information could inform future public health responses to subsequent waves of COVID-19.

“Our study goals were to measure the association of government-mandated closures and restrictions with aggregate mobility, to evaluate associations between aggregate mobility and number of individuals with laboratory confirmed SARS-COV-2 infections and to estimate the number of SARS COV-2 infections that may have been averted. “The World Health Organization (WHO) Director General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, had on January 30, 2020, declared the COVID- 19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, asking all countries to prepare for containment, active surveillance, early detection, isolation, case management and contact tracing.

“Most countries, including Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and the most populous country, responded accordingly and part of the Nigerian government response included socioeconomic and public health interventions to reduce impact of the pandemic.

“Socio-economic interventions included providing cash transfers, lines of credit and food assistance to poor and high-risk households, while public health interventions included government-mandated closures and restrictions on schools, social gatherings and all forms of transportation locally referred to as lockdown,” the researchers said. The statement further stressed that: “Our findings support the use of restricted mobility as a measure of infection control in Nigeria should there be additional COVID-19 waves in the future. Restrictions on movement are unsustainable in the long term, future closure and restrictions, if warranted, need to be more effective.

“Suggested areas of improvement include tougher restrictions on movement and more robust contact tracing in residential areas, transit hubs and workplaces, greater testing capacity and more political support for testing; greater access to COVID-19 data for policy and process evaluation to identify opportunities for efficiency gains….”

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