COVID-19 May Be Transmitted Through Air –NCDC

COVID-19 may be transmitted through the air, according to new evidence, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC reveals.

The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, made this known at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday.

Commenting on the means of transmission of the virus prior to the new development, Ihekweazu explained that the virus was only transmittable through droplets which emanate from the nose and the mouth and fall to the ground, but new studies have now shown that the disease may also be airborne.

Following this development, the NCDC boss stressed the importance of wearing face masks and the need to maintain social distancing, noting that it will help to reduce the risk of being infected.

“Understanding the modes of transmission of any new virus is very critical for defining response strategies. For COVID-19 from the very beginning, our understanding based on other coronaviruses was spread primarily through droplets.

“Droplets are excretions from the respiratory tracts that can’t stay on in the air. They ultimately fall to the ground after a few minutes. However, as we have studied transmission, studied clusters of these infections, we saw increasing evidence from clusters of infections. Clusters transmissions did not seem to be enough to explain the clusters that we are seeing.

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“Diseases that are commonly spread by what we call airborne infection are things like measles and influenza that can be suspended in the air and transmit over longer distances. Over the past few weeks, increasing evidence has emerged that in addition to droplet infections, we cannot rule out that airborne transmission is also possible as a mode of transmission of COVID-19,” Ihekweazu said.