Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki has gone into self-isolation after his close contact with the Bauchi State Governor, Sen. Bala Mohammed and Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, who both tested positive for coronavirus.

In a statement on Wednesday in Benin, Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie revealed that the governor has sent in his samples for testing.

According to him, Obaseki met Senator Mohammed at the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and National Economic Council (NEC) meetings so there is a possibility that he could be infected.

He added that the Edo State governor also visited Mr. Kyari which makes the test very important.

His words, “The governor has gone into self-isolation after the Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Mohammed and Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, tested positive for coronavirus.

“The governor had met Senator Mohammed at the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and National Economic Council (NEC) meetings. He also visited Mr. Kyari.”

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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.

The name “coronavirus” is derived from Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “wreath”, itself a borrowing from Greek κορώνη korṓnē, “garland, wreath”. The name refers to the characteristic appearance of virions (the infective form of the virus) by electron microscopy, which have a fringe of large, bulbous surface projections creating an image reminiscent of a crown or of a solar corona.[citation needed] This morphology is created by the viral spike peplomers, which are proteins on the surface of the virus.