Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA, Prof. Phyllis Kanki, says that continued surveillance is the key to the public health of a country, whether it be for emerging or re-emerging pathogens, such as Ebola or Zika virus.
She also added that continued surveillance of HIV drug resistance would help evaluate the quality of HIV treatment programme and inform rational health policy.
Kanki disclosed this recently at the University of Lagos Pro Chancellor’s Distinguished Annual Lecture Series titled ‘Responding to Nigeria’s Disease Outbreaks and Epidemics: Ebola, Zika and HIV’, held at the university premises.
She also revealed that understanding the infectious disease agents might be important for better diagnosis, treatment as well as vaccine development to curb it.
According to her, Nigeria has had a long history of infectious disease outbreaks, beginning with the 1996 Meningitis A outbreak that resulted in 12,000 fatalities. “Also Lassa fever virus outbreaks have been recorded in certain states in the country on a regular basis, with over 1,000 suspected cases in 2018.”
Prof. Kanki pointed out that avian influenza was witnessed in 2006 and resurfaced in 2015. “During the 2014 West Africa Ebola Virus epidemic, Nigeria suffered 19 cases but successfully contained its spread.”
Explaining the emergence of Ebola virus on African continent, Kanki said it was not strange to the continent. “It was first discovered in an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 and many of the subsequent outbreaks have occurred in this region of the continent, including the current outbreak in the Equateur province and, in 2014, the West Africa’s outbreak affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
She, therefore, said although Ebola research had been limited on people, it was thought that an early and robust cytotoxic T cell response would correlate with survival.
In addition, she disclosed that early conversion from IgM to IgG responses might blunt the severe disease course. For zika virus, which was first discovered in a sentinel monkey in the Zika forest of Uganda and the first human case in a Nigerian woman with jaundice, fever, headache and joint pain in 1954, the expert said findings showed that zika continued to be an endemic in West Africa.
On HIV, the professor said of the 34 million people living with HIV on the globe today, 70 per cent of them were on the African continent. She revealed that UNAIDS ranked Nigeria as the second highest burden. South Africa, Nigeria and India account for one third of the global burden of HIV.
Prof. Kanki also revealed that from the research findings, which she collaborated with the Universities of Lagos and Jos, all three sub-subtypes of HIV were seen throughout
Nigeria.
