With the increasing number of confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Edo State, the government has urged residents to be cautious amid the pandemic.

The Edo State government recently came out to say that precautionary measures must be taken seriously to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

According to the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Patrick Okundia, it is important to safeguard all citizens during the outbreak, especially the elderly, who account for most of the fatalities recorded in the state.

He added that compulsory use of face masks and hand hygiene is extremely vital during these trying times.

His words, “Physical distancing, compulsory use of face masks, hand hygiene and other epidemiological safety rules must be strictly followed in order to prevent further spread of COVID-19 and protect the people, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to COVID-19.”

“Two new toll-free lines for COVID-19 response have been introduced by Edo State Government to strengthen the initial lines from the State Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) distributed at the onset of the outbreak. If you have any COVID-19 symptoms, please call 08001235111 or 08002200110 for assistance.”

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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.