The emergence of Covid-19 has fundamentally changed our societies, leaving us with universal safety precautions aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus and common ways to deal with this global health emergency.
The pandemic has posed significant challenges especially to Nigeria’s public health sector, research/medical institutions and governmental policies, with all those being forcefully shaped to create processes to curtail the spread of the virus across the nation. Some of those included instituting temporary restrictions on gatherings, travel bans, self-distancing, self-isolation, quarantine, regular hand washing and the use of face masks.
It is worthy of note that most of these policies have their economic implications to both developed and developing nations, such as Nigeria with our sociocultural climate.
For Example, Physical distancing measures may have been less implemented in poor communities with populations due to economic and socio-cultural challenges as People living in poverty are less willing to make economic sacrifices, not because they place greater value on their livelihood concerns than contracting COVID-19, but because they lack the resources and social protections to isolate themselves and sacrifice economic opportunities.
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Given that the Nigerian Government has established the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to work with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) in the implementation of the various initiatives and strategies on COVID-19 containment. However Public perception, opinion and attitude to the various social control interventions introduced in the wake of the pandemic have adversely affected the planning, modifying and implementation of any coordinated response to current and future epidemics in Nigeria.
As such, it has been established that public perception and attitude are important for the successes of the measures introduced to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, Only a public-private partnership approach can efficiently be used to more effectively disseminate public health communication and prevention messages, the Nigerian Government should expand this collaboration to improve the quality of services provided in terms of COVID-19 outbreak management.
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Formulated policies, developed guidelines and standard operating procedures in communities should be the concern of all as we respond to the pandemic. As such lets us join Hands and Work Together Against Corona in Curbing the Spread within our communities as Allies Battling Corona.
#TogetherAgainstCorona
#AlliesBattlingCorona
