COVID-19 and dearth of ventilators
With five deaths recorded from the ravaging COVID-19 and a daily increase in the number of confirmed cases from the deadly disease in the country, the recent media report, which confirmed inadequate number of ventilators in Nigeria is a national embarrassment for a country with about 200 million lives. Besides exposing the sorry state of […]
With five deaths recorded from the ravaging COVID-19 and a daily increase in the number of confirmed cases from the deadly disease in the country, the recent media report, which confirmed inadequate number of ventilators in Nigeria is a national embarrassment for a country with about 200 million lives. Besides exposing the sorry state of the country’s health sector, it also reveals the poor level of Nigeria’s preparedness for health emergencies. It is scandalous for any serious country and responsible leadership to wait for a pandemic to occur before providing indispensable medical machines and instruments.
The report showed that there are only 169 ventilators in sixteen out of the 36 states of the federation. The states include Kano, Ogun, Edo, Delta, Adamawa, Kwara, Bayelsa, Katsina, Borno, Yobe, Benue, Bauchi, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Gombe, and Plateau. While the report said that there is an average of 10 ventilators in each of the states, it further clarified that some of the states, in real terms, do not have more than five ventilators. It is worse that some states do not have any ventilator for the treatment of COVID-19. The 169 ventilators mentioned in the report exist mostly in public tertiary hospitals, with few in secondary and privately-owned health facilities.
With the current number of active COVID-19 cases in the country, the 169 ventilators are short of the number required if all the infected persons undergoing treatment were to require the use of a ventilator, which is a machine that cannot be used for more than one patient at a time. A large number of ventilators is therefore required in the country at this critical moment of global demand. Medical experts argue that Nigeria requires about 10, 000 respirators for emergency cases alone. Ventilators are very important equipment, not only for the treatment of COVID-19, but for other respiratory illnesses.
A ventilator is “a machine that provides mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently”. Ventilators, which are sometimes called respirators, are chiefly used in intensive care and emergency medicine. Major manufacturers of this life-saving machine are in America, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and France.
Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said during one of his recent media briefings that “although there are no enough ventilators in Nigeria, the country might not need many of them for the treatment of patients suffering from COVID-19”. He said most of the cases so far recorded in the country were being managed without ventilators because the patients showed mild symptoms. The minister, though a health expert, must have minced his words which sought to take the COVID-19 pandemic for granted. Coronavirus is a disease that affects the lungs of infected persons, which usually results in patients having difficulties in their respiratory system.
Even as reports indicate that government at various levels is placing orders for the supply of ventilators, part of the problem in the current rush for ventilators is that countries from which the ventilators are to be supplied are the worst hit by the deadly disease. At present, fifty-four governments, including many in Europe, Asia and America have imposed restrictions on medical supply exports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Time is overdue for universities and research institutions such as the Sheda Science and Technology Complex (SHESTCO) in Abuja to collaborate with and support relevant agencies within the public and private sectors for the manufacture of critical medical machines and tools. Our inability to be where we should be in this regard is owed to lack of a well-planned and coordinated national development plan.
While we do not hope for the kind of situation being experienced in some countries in Europe and America, it will be a catastrophe if ventilators are not available in the event that the COVID-19 cases now described by the minister of health as ‘mild’ turn out to be critical in their thousands. Access to ventilators by patients who need them should be seen as an effective way of responding to COVID-19.