Health
By Kennedy Nnamani
AWA U. Kalu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, has described the COVID-19 pandemic as an alumnus of the Corona Virus.
He made this analogy in Abuja on July 21, 2022 during the 42nd anniversary of the Nigerian Law School of class 1980.
In delivering his lecture, which was based on the topic “The Role of The Alumni”, Kalu stated that “because of COVID-19, which is still enduring in many countries, you may wish to think of the present pandemic as an alumnus of the Corona Virus family.”
While further explaining his allusion, he tilted towards the ordinary Dictionary definition of Alumnus as “A person who has received a degree from a school (high school, or college or university.”
He therefore drew that “whether as a boy or girl, in the general sense, you need to have passed through an educational institution, and received a certification before you can become an alumnus of that institution.”
He further traced that the current pandemic situation has its root from the Spanish Flu between 1918 and 1919.
“If you look back to the Spanish Flu (1918-1919), which claimed approximately 20 -100 million lives, you may take it as an ‘index case’ in the family of the Corona Virus (INFLUENZA H1N1).”
He added that “during that original pandemic, the experience was the same as at the term COVID-19 manifested its effect worldwide,” he said.
It is pertinent to know that during this period, communities imposed quarantines, the use of masks, bans on public gatherings just as was strictly observed in 2020.
“The influenza, he recalled, was succeeded by the Asian Flu – INFLUENZA AH2N2”, which was identified in China in 1956 from where it spread to Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States with similar symptoms as COVID-19.
Kalu further recalled that there were two waves of that outbreak, but the spread of the infection gradually slowed down, following the development of a vaccine in August 1957, just like the recent pandemic.
Following the Asian Flu as Kalu, FNIALStraced was the Hong Kong Flu pandemic in 1968, nicknamed INFLUENZA AH3N2 after which there were subsequent outbreaks in Singapore and Vietnam, which later spread to the other parts of the world as far as Africa and South America. He taught that an estimated 100,000 persons died in the U.S. as a result of these outbreaks.
Coming down to recent times, between 2002 and 2003, Kalu remembered the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS, whose symptoms were not far from that of the COVID-19. Some countries, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan having the hardest hit established medical protocols in anticipation of future pandemics.
In addition, the lecturer noted that Swine Flu came between 2009 and 2010 and “this appeared to be a new strain of H1N1, which is said to have resulted from a previous triple re-assortment of bird, swine and human flu viruses, but the effect was limited as the death toll was around 18, 449.”
In the same vein, he buttressed that the “Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS, a strain of Corona Virus was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and is a viral respiratory disease with symptoms that include fever, cough and shortness of breath. It has an extremely high fatality rate compared to other corona viruses.”
Attaching EBOLA to his analogies, he said that the Ebola virus was next and is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and other primates.
He also recalled that the 2014-2016 outbreak of EBOLA in West Africa was the largest and most complex EBOLA outbreak since the virus was first discovered in 1976.
It is pertinent to know that the EBOLA virus has revisited around the Democratic Republic of Congo. However Kalu noted that “fortunately and reportedly, the virus has been contained in that area.”
Consequently, Awa U. Kalu, concluded that the “COVID 19 is an alumnus of the Spanish Flu of 1918 and it is little wonder that the protocols for the curtailment and management of the pandemic has a very close resemblance to the protocols of 100-plus years ago.”
You may recall that there have been reports on various variants of the COVID-19 virus ranging from Alpha (B1.1.7); Beta (B1.351); Gamma(P1); Delta (B1.617.2); Omicron (B1.1.529), which also has sub-variants, B.A.2, B.A.4 and B.A5.
Kalu therefore enjoined the celebrants to learn from the tale of the mutation of corona virus to play the roles of alumni.
“The tale of the mutation of corona virus,” he said, “must give you an idea of the role of the alumni. This is a roundabout way of noting that a well decorated class such as yours must multiply, must regenerate, must mutate and yield to better products.”
Tags: AWA U. Kalu Covid-19 Ebola Kennedy Nnamani
