They hadn't planned that. The international team of scientists who published a major study on February 20 on the risk for each African country of being affected by the Covid-19 epidemic had clearly identified Nigeria as one of the most exposed countries contamination. But they had not anticipated that the first case identified on the soil of sub-Saharan Africa would be an Italian working in Nigeria.
Just a week ago, “our model was based on a concentrated epidemic in China, and since then the situation has completely changed [nearly 40 countries have reported cases of contamination, editor's note], and the virus can now be imported from anywhere. Our starting model no longer needs to be, ”remarks Mathias Altmann, epidemiologist at the University of Bordeaux and one of the co-authors of the study on the permeability of African countries to the coronavirus originating from Wuhan in China. This obsolescence of work shows the rapid spread of the epidemic.
Effective against Ebola
But for this expert on infectious diseases in developing countries, the fact that the coronavirus seems to have entered sub-Saharan Africa through Nigeria is "rather good news". The country seemed to him, in fact, relatively well prepared to deal with the situation.
On a continent that “has had its share of epidemics and whose countries therefore have an enormous knowledge of the field and a real competence to react to this kind of situation”, Nigeria is in a very good position to face the Arrival of the Covid-19, according to Mathias Altmann. “The CDC [Center for Disease control - Editor's note] responsible for the entire region of West and Central Africa is located in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, which means that they have a very high organizational level in health matters ”, specifies the researcher.
The country has also already distinguished itself by “succeeding in containing the Ebola epidemic fairly quickly in 2014”, he recalls. It had only taken the Nigerian authorities three months to eradicate the disease from the country. The World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control praised Nigeria's responsiveness and “first-rate epidemiological work”.
Risk of spread to neighboring countries
The strengths of Nigeria must not, however, make us forget the limits which can prove to be handicapping in the fight against such a virus. The fact that this pathogen may be present in an individual who has few or no symptoms may allow the virus to spread discreetly in a country which, like everywhere in Africa, “has a material shortage compared to Western countries, especially with regard to diagnostic tools ”, underlines Mathias Altmann.
The question is then to know what scale the epidemic can take in Africa if it threads through the nets posed by Nigeria. Neighboring countries like Chad and Niger have “less functional capacity to respond to an epidemic”, recognizes Mathias Altmann. But, they also have an advantage: they are much more agricultural regions where people are more outside, "and viruses like this like closed and confined spaces and spread much less well in rural areas", concludes l epidemiologist.
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