Since the advent of the novel corona virus named SARS-CoV2 and the disease COVID-19, the world has witnessed a near total shift in attention.
Hardly would you find a news article without a touch of COVID-19 in it. People, especially Nigerians kept vigil to check what we now jocularly refer to as ‘live scores’ from the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC).
The latest report showed a total confirmed case of 49,485 cases with 36,834 discharged and 977 deaths.
What killed them? COVID? No! An immediate take away from this is that death from the virus may not be as alarming as the noise about the virus. A further twist to this is that majority of people who died with the virus did not in fact die of the virus. Instead, they died of complications associated with underlying illnesses predating the discovery of SARS-COV2 itself.
This gets me worried of the gradual neglect of other health challenges which have always been with us. It appears we have all caught the bug of the COVID-19 rave so much that other lethal health conditions now appear less of a monster to us.
Diarrheal diseases have always been a major cause of deaths in our communities. It’s reported that proper hand washing can curb this menace by as much as 50%. COVID came and everyone ‘suddenly’ realised the importance of hand washing. The radio and TV are awash with jingles about hand washing. Why wait till now? What changed? What will change?
It’s generally known that most cases of hypertension are accidental findings during clinic visits for other health complaints, some related to hypertension itself. Worse is that most hypertensive patients are less compliant with their management which leads to life long complications and sometimes death.
COVID-19 has come to worsen this trend but my people are more worried about COVID than the real killer itself. Who would help tell them the truth?
The case is similar with diabetes. Rather than focus on glycemic controls and prevention of diabetic complications, most patients prefer to look for shortcuts; in the process they over-flog their livers and kidneys with wonder drugs that would rather hasten organ failure.
A diabetic patient would rather drink COVID-prevention potions than stick to his routine medications to keep the diabetes under control. Who is to blame?
What happens in the hospitals? Every patient is seen and treated as a potential COVID patient until otherwise confirmed through test. Even the doctors attend to patients with palpable fear of contracting the virus since the required Personal Protective Equipment is either inadequate or outrightly not available.
As a sexual and reproductive health professional, I have watched these vital services take the back seat because of this virus. The effect is especially worse in Nigeria, a country where several women die everyday from birth-related complications. The government, donors and many stakeholders now have their focus on the ‘deadly’ virus at the expense of other raging causes of mortalities among Nigerians.
It’s interesting to see how the world is beginning to move on with what is now termed the ‘new normal’. I hope the abnormality of other health conditions that are of debilitating effect will not be swept along with the ‘normalcy’ we now see in COVID-19.
