Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu: Putting Nigeria Ahead Of COVID-19

When he takes his turn to give updates at the daily briefing of the Covid-19 Presidential Task Force, he cuts the image of the perfect physician who gives a dying patient some hope of survival. When he talked, he exuded a calm confidence that charmed his listeners to believe. His words were well picked and he delivered the updates in a voice that rang with conviction. You got a feeling that he was as transparent as his glasses, and everything he said must be true.

Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) came into office in 2018 with a clear vision of his assignment. He came with the vision “to build the confidence of Nigerians in the NCDC as the body established to protect the health of citizens through information, inclusion and timely response to health concerns.”

This is exactly what he has been doing since the reported outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan China in December 2019. Dr Ihekweazu has shown leadership to put Nigeria ahead of the pandemic by his timely and proactive response.

He got the NCDC to promptly initiate measures to strengthen the country’s preparedness for early detection and timely response to the disease. This included strengthening in-country diagnostic capacity for the testing of COVID-19 by leveraging on existing laboratories within the NCDC molecular laboratory network. Initially, five laboratories were activated in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, one in Lagos state, two in Osun state, and one in Edo state.

This was at a time some other countries were yet to figure out a way to respond to the novel pandemic. But apart from ensuring Nigeria was able to start testing earlier than many countries in Africa through a robust collaboration with the World Health Organization, he was able, within the short space of time, to activate six more laboratories. This was to ensure more widespread centres for testing of COVID-19 in Nigeria to cater to each geo-political zone in the country.

This has allowed Nigeria to conduct more contact tracing since after the index case in Lagos in February. As of Friday April 17, Nigeria had conducted over 7000 tests, and moving towards testing about 3,000 daily. This may seem little when we compare to the testing capacity in Europe and the United States where some countries are capable of doing more than 20, 000 tests daily.

 But this is Africa, and the only country testing more than Nigeria now is South Africa, which has over 2, 506 confirmed cases of covid-19 and had tested over 47,000 people. South Africa has a unique health system where private facilities exist for the rich and the rest of the people use state facilities. Majority of the Covid -19 tests done in the country were done at private laboratories.

So, considering resources available to it, the NCDC has been able to respond very robustly to put the country ahead of the pandemic. And it is undoubtedly one of the reasons the country’s numbers have been manageable and patients of covid-19 are making quick recoveries. As he said during his briefing last Thursday, the challenge for the country is not lack of testing capacity. He said the problem now was getting the contacts to present themselves for testing to prevent further community transmission of the disease.

But Dr Ihekweazu had won me over, perhaps, long before others in February when he put himself in self-isolation after returning from an official visit to China. He was part of the 25 member team deployed by WHO to China between February 16 and 24. The team met with counterparts in China to understand their response to COVID-19 and how the global community could learn from it. As recommended in NCDC’s public health advisory, travelers from countries with ongoing transmission of COVID-19 were advised to proceed on 14-day self-isolation, whether well or unwell.

Dr Ihekweazu came back and put himself in self-isolation. It was leadership by example, something not common in this clime where public officials see themselves as been above the law and rules for public safety and order. A press statement issued at the time by NCDC communication department said the “The Honourable Minister of Health is very proud of Dr Ihekweazu’s contribution, which reflects the high-level recognition and respect the global health community has for Nigeria.”

But Dr Iheakweazu has always been on the frontline of health services locally and globally. Untill his appointment into NCDC in January 2018, he was the Acting Director of the Regional Centre for Disease Control for West Africa.

He trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has over 20 years’ experience working in senior public health and leadership positions in several national public health institutes, including the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the UK’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI). He had also led several short-term engagements for WHO, mainly in response to major infectious disease outbreaks around the world.

A graduate of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, he has a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and subsequently completed his Public Health specialization in the UK. He is widely published in medical peer review journals.

There’s no doubt his previous experience on management of infectious diseases had prepared him adequately for his new role. But he, like the rest of the world, is facing a novel pandemic that the world had never seen before. The world is struggling to adapt and contain the virus in varying ways with the common denominator being social distancing and staying at home.

But the NCDC, with support from the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19, is confronting the pandemic headlong and steering the country towards in the right direction. The NCDC has prevented public panic but ensured adequate public appreciation of the dangers. The infected are also getting treated and recoveries have been on the rise. This is the essence of Dr Ihekweazu.

–Gedoni writes from Makurdi, Benue State.

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.