The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has said that Nigerians should be proud of his recent visit to China.

The NCDC boss, who is in self-isolation upon his return from China a few days ago, said he was in China on the invitation of the World Health Organisation to learn how the country is dealing with Coronavirus which was first detected in Wuhan, China.

Ihekweazu, who spoke via Skype on Silverbird TV on Thursday, said he learnt a lot during his trip to China and the new knowledge is impacting on the way Nigeria is responding to the epidemic.

DG, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu
He said, “I was one of the ten global health leaders invited by the World Health Organisation to visit China. It is very important to learn from a country that is dealing with the virus. From 5000 cases a day to 100 cases.

“It is a new virus and we have to understand the new signs, response and different aspect of how the country has organised itself and its 1.5 billion people living there. I learnt a lot and what I learnt has an influence on what we are doing in Nigeria.

“I was surprised about the brouhaha around my trip. I thought Nigeria should be proud that I was invited to be part of that mission and contribute to the most important event happening in the world today.

“The most important finding out of our mission is how China has mobilised the entire country. This is not what has been left to the China CDC or the ministry of health.

“The entire country has been mobilised to recognise that this is not only as a threat to health but as a threat to their economy, life and the existence of the country and therefore everyone is mobilised to carry out the control measure that government has said is necessary to control its outbreak in China.

“Nigeria has remained lucky but in as much as we still have flights coming in every day, we have suspect cases every day. Two days ago, we tested a couple who arrived at the Abuja airport but tested negative. It reminds us that there is a threat every day and we have to keep being prepared and all of the society must respond.”

On a recent claim by a former Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Prof. Maurice Iwu, that he has a possible ‘cure’ to C, Ihekweazu said, “I don’t want to comment on the specific issue but I want to explain to Nigerians how drug discovery works. You can’t discover a drug for a disease that does not exist.

“We just found out this new virus some two months ago. You can’t find drugs if you don’t have cases. So, we can only test new therapeutics i.e. drugs in an environment where there are cases because you have to carry out a clinical trial which happens in four stages. I think the era of sitting in your village and coming up with drugs has really gone.”