Covid-19 Related Disruption of Out-Patient Services: An Opportunity for Integrating Telemedicine into Clinical Practice in Public Hospitals in Nigeria

Abstract

In December 2019, the first cases of a viral pneumonia were reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Deep thoroughput sequencing of airway secretions of the patients revealed a novel coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2. On February 11, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) named the disease Coronavirus disease2019 (COVID-19) and declared it a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. As the COVID-19 cases escalated, it became a source of tremendous disruption of the lives and means of livelihood of huge populations of people worldwide. The pandemic continues to spread and the number of cases of COVID-19 worldwide numbered a cumulative 22,034,395 with 776,801 deaths as at August 17, 2020. (Worldometer COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020) Nigeria had recorded 49, 485 cases and 977 deaths by the said date while South Africa leads the continent’s tally of the disease with 589,886 cases and 11,982 deaths – the fifth highest in the world. (Worldometer COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020). The implementation of measures instituted to limit the spread of the disease by most national governments included wearing of face masks in public and restriction of human movement and physical interaction.