The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has come out to hail the level of compliance with COVID-19 safety protocols in mosques around the Federal Capital City during Jumma’at congregation prayers.

Mr Ikharo Attah, Head, Publicity and Enlightenment, FCT Ministerial Enforcement Task Force on COVID-19 recently revealed this in Abuja.

According to him, Imams should keep ensuring that their congregants to adhere strictly to physical distancing during prayers, as that will help amid the 2nd wave of coronavirus.

He added that the Uthman Bin Alfa Mosque at Wuse II can do better amid the pandemic because they currently do not have handwashing points and sanitisers at the entry points into their mosque.

His words, “The usage of face masks, sanitisers and hand washing points in the mosques visited are quite encouraging.

“The Imams and Ulamas have put in place measures to ensure compliance from the entry points.”

“The only mosque we were not encouraged with is the Uthman Bin Alfa Mosque, Wuse II which is located opposite Banex Plaza.

“Though worshippers who entered the premises wear face masks, there was no infrared thermometer for a temperature check, no handwashing points and no sanitisers at the entry points into the mosque.”

What do you think?

Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.