COVID-19 :The Adisa Notes: Lessons from COVID 19

By Charles Adisa MD
The summary is simply we have not learned from the previous pandemics, and even if we had, we were not prepared.
It is far easier to prepare for a planned event, say world cup or Olympics. You know the time, you assess the needs and estimate the number of people and resources needed.
Pandemic and natural disasters present a different scenario/dynamics. It doesn’t tell you when it is coming, nor how many people or resources it is going to demand.
Pandemics are far worse than other natural disasters for several reasons
▪ We have established early warning ⚠ signs for Tsunamis, flooding etc and to a certain extent, we can plan and mitigate the damage.
▪ Most natural disasters are limited to a region or specific geographical locations unlike pandemic which cuts across continent. In the case of COVID 19, only the Antarctica was spared and this is partly because it is scarcely inhabited by humans.
▪ You can’t spread natural disasters, but pandemics can be spread by everyone including the care givers.
It is no longer a question of if we are going to have another pandemic but when the next one surfaces?
1. We need to expand our health care services and make them flexible in such a way that they can be easily adapted to challenging situations.
2. Our public spaces like stadia, entertainment centers should be designed in such a way that they can serve dual purposes of serving as treatment or isolation centers.
3. Technology for the production of critical equipments and medical materials should be versatile in such a way that non-medical companies can easily deploy such technologies in their various facilities and factories just as some automobile industries have promised to do.
4. We need to develop early detection warnings for pandemics. We are living in a global village. Any major outbreak of disease in any continent or country should concern everyone especially with the volume of air travels all over the world.
5. Increased funding for Research as well as strengthening all the local and international agencies critical to the containment of such disasters.
6. Ability to rapidly sequence the genome of the offending organism and sharing of the genome with other labs.
7. A centralized health care system
8. Information sharing among nations and adopting best practices which can be tailored to the specific context.
Above all, we should remain our brothers keepers and know that we are all in it together. Kudos to the Cuban volunteer medical professionals who risked their lives to support the Italians.
▪ Adisa, a professor of Surgery and Surgical Oncologist, is with the Abia State University.