 You're welcome back to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Starting from tomorrow, Nigeria will deny entry to non-Nigerians and non-residents coming from India, Brazil and Turkey. The ban comes as the countries witness a new wave of the coronavirus. India has been particularly hard hit with hospitals, mugs and crematoriums overwhelmed. The country has been recording hundreds of thousands of cases daily as well as double digit deaths, even though the infection rate in Nigeria has slowed drastically. Consent citizens say there's needs to be at alert. A public health expert Dr Tsu-Yi Miboundu is joining us to talk about this. Good morning Dr Tsu-Yi. I want to get your quick reactions to this and also to those of you know public health experts as well who say this ban should be extended as well to people who transit through India. Well it's a very dire situation word right now. Well look we are seeing two huge epicenters of COVID-19 and the fact is that if the world is not rising up to respond you know it's a moral burden. It's a health imperative for the whole world to rise up and say we need to stop the spread of coronavirus both in India and even the South America. Did your case become peculiar? Now India has stopped 400,000 infection daily and as much as 3000 deaths 400,000 infection. In fact the funeral pyre that used to burn people it's littering everywhere big big cities nowhere to put dead body and then the key lesson that we must learn apart from seeing that we're burning entrance if you burn entrance of people. Well that is a step but the highest step is the fact that even those won't call me must be subjected to proper follow-up you know and quarantine in such a way that we don't allow the spread of the deadly strain from India to enter into Nigeria. Now how did you get to this level? What happened was simply this the prime minister of India just woke up one day early this year and felt that well we've won the war against COVID. He ended up campaigning political campaign with that wearing mask and even his follower didn't wear mask. He neglected every protocol that the prime minister neglected every protocol that had to do with preventing COVID-19. He did that then religious festival and then everything opened up like that and lo and behold the Muta Street Indian of this population that's by being home to the Serum Institute of India was able to vaccinate less than two percent of its population. So there was no vaccination okay the rollout was bad they were shipping their vaccines outside India so and then we have this problem and a very bad strain 35 percent of COVID-19 deaths of course in South America so you see all the country Bogota, Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile all of them accounted for just 35 percent another deadly strain of the virus. So we see that whether we like it or not if we may not have direct link with said South America we have direct link with India because even in Nigeria you don't get a direct flight going to India you still have to transit through any of those countries you know that can then bring it to Nigeria that is the key thing we must be able to do our algorithm in such a way that we can track anybody that transit through any of this country now at home fronts we're having a huge challenge since how many it is one year now we've only tested less than 2 million of 206 million population that's like what percentage is that maybe 0.7% or 1% that's not wrong that is not a true reflection of our COVID situation now we got vaccine we got 3.92 million doses of vaccine in Nigeria we've only be able to administer 1.1 that's 1.2 million doses of that vaccine less than half of that vaccine in more than two months that that is not function that is we're not deployed number one the vaccine is not available secondly when our rule that plan is bad thirdly we have lowered all the things that we need to do to prevent the occurrence of COVID so so um you know there is the narrative um you know when we went through the first and the second wave of the um of the COVID um the lockdowns and well you know everything that we had to do put in place the infrastructure like you've also mentioned you which isn't really really sound but somehow some way people would celebrate and say Nigeria survived it you know there's something about Africa that makes a COVID-19 not very very um so much of a deadly virus here um would it be foolish to still lean on to those beliefs that somehow some way we have maybe hot weather um or you know we we are resilient here and so whatever is happening in India may not you know affect us that badly magical thinking will not help us hope is not a strategy the reality is this if we're talking about hot weather okay Brazil also has tropical weather but they are experiencing it we still hope you want very bad now um we don't know why we're not seeing much of the effects in Nigeria but that does not mean that we should lower our guards because as as much as 10 000 people are still active that's already you know a place where you can see a spike and let us not forget that this virus kept mutating we you know there's a Nigerian mutant now we're just just studying it if the virus mutates and bring out the worst form of it and we have let down our guards that we have done now nobody will be happy for it we're having weak health system we don't have vaccines we are discontinuing non-pharmaceutical protocols Nigeria is facing huge insecurity there's an economic challenge all these things we drive unrest we should be able to connect all these things we drive unrest it is imperative that Nigeria stand firm and look at what they can do and do effectively we're not going to get vaccinated from India Indian is topping this the hospital in fact the the the CEO of the of the ceremony system of India uh Ponawala ran away because his life was under threat they said you are selling this vaccine you're not giving it to us he ran to London okay so forget it you're not getting vaccinated from India for now you now have Russia we have China those people use vaccine for what we call vaccine diplomacy because they put the put condition for you to get the vaccine we don't have the money to buy vaccine if we were saying the justin and justin want to deploy it where is the money to buy those vaccines covax is having problem because the people are supposed to produce cheap vaccine for them I also have a problem so what do we do and there's no point anywhere in Africa where we're doing research to to to develop a vaccine it's not a difficult thing so here we are what they should Nigeria do my own sincere thing is that we should not lower our guards we shouldn't let us keep keep using the non-pharmaceutical intervention that we know okay but unfortunately we're facing a huge doubt arising from many sources you know a faith-based doubts where the distrust the trust deficit between the government and the government the corruption that entered into the vaccine distribution and palliative distribution these are complex things that is actually affecting belief and people's ability to say want to embrace so based on these challenges how effective might this new ban be when other government has said there'll be three thousand five hundred dollars you know fine for any the folder of these travel ban but in terms of structures how strong do you think they are and can our authorities at the airport be able to assure that you know this ban indeed you know is effective you say I let's we know our reality I don't like pandering to people's you know repeats you know some tired repeats you know we buy you buy again how do you monitor the ban the demand can only be effective if we can trust our system you know we've seen so many underhands happening at our airport we've seen so many fake covid reports coming from our institutions we've seen big men that cannot be touched going through a running rough shot of the whole system that's supposed to keep us we hope it works the only thing we can do is hope but I've always repeat hope can never be a strategy now because it has to be layered check a layered check in such a way that we can relate to the the institutional country and understand people that are having visa Nigerian visa because if somebody is a resident in Nigeria he or she has a right to come to Nigeria but what is the monetary you can ban that one definitely if someone is in Nigeria coming from India he or she has a right to enter Nigeria you can ban him so the question is that beyond this ban what are you going to do what are you going to do what are those people transferred from other country that could be a presenter of those virus what are you going to do so you see looking at ban and say that listen I'm putting a ban what nice good for media good for you know face value but again there are deeper things you know that may not make that bad work so with all the things that you mentioned you know make it difficult for like you said there's a trust issue between the government and the government and the governed what in what ways can we ensure that we at least you know stick with the non-pharmaceutical routes to keeping ourselves safe it's going to be difficult to tell Nigerians not to stay at home you know you can't that's even a worst scenario you can't say that I mean let's face it with the economy is bad people are hustling terribly to me to make ends meet there's a lot of insecurity you know going on you can't tell me the I think the best thing we can do is to go look at and personalize intervention I mean now the narratives you know because again the information space has been taken over by a lot of doubts okay it's going to be difficult for us to recapture the trust yes the information space I'm able to die information appropriately but I think we should target individual but you know there's no point for anybody to want to die when you can stay alive people are looking up to you they need your advice you need your support don't worry to die so we should be able to emphasize at the individual level what we can do what we should do at the individual level yes they say the the virus is gone Nigeria has a super gene that but please don't allow yourself to die if you don't have reason to be in a party run away let it be so necessary and if you're there this are the critical steps you need to take if you have to be you know be anywhere I mean in the market wash your your wear your face mask okay so that at least you are taking steps to protect yourself and then if you look at even the local government you can look at the at the market and figure out at least this bootface mask free face mark at the market put some some guides to watch out who is not putting on this mask we need to look look at what is possible but I want to you know advise everybody protect yourself personally okay the government is not there for you oh scary all right thank you very much Dr. Tsu Yimibon for your time on the breakfast this morning and that's much you can take regard in the COVID-19 and the ban on travel from India Turkey and Brazil do stay with us a conversation on religion and states is up next