More facts have emerged on how the dreaded Coronavirus disease of 2019 is spreading, other than a contact with the droplet of an infected person.
According to the Director -General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, new finding has shown that COVID-19 can be transmitted through the air.
He disclosed this on Monday during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.
He said, “Over the past few weeks, increasing evidence has emerged that in addition to droplet infections; we cannot rule out that airborne transmission is also possible as a mode of transmission of COVID-19.
“Understanding the modes of transmission of any new virus is very critical for defining response strategies. For COVID-19, from the very beginning, our understanding was based on the fact that coronavirus was spread primarily through droplets.
“Droplets are excretions from the respiratory tracts that can’t stay on in the air; they ultimately fall to the ground after a few minutes.
“However, as we have studied transmission, studied clusters of these infections, we saw increasing evidence from clusters of infections where droplet transmission did not seem to be enough to explain the clusters that we are seeing.
“Diseases that are commonly understood to be airborne are measles and influenza; they can be suspended in the air and transmit over longer distances.”
He thus urged Nigerians to act in a precautionary way and assume that the virus could be transmitted through the air.
