Community engagement; the master key to preventing Nigeria's obvious pandemic fatigue and the next COVID-19 wave

Oluwaseun Adeolu Ogundijo; Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mustapha; Ahmed Tijani Abubakar; Abubakar Musa Imam; Folashade Bamidele; Nusirat Elelu

doi:10.1177/22799036221107061

Community engagement; the master key to preventing Nigeria's obvious pandemic fatigue and the next COVID-19 wave

J Public Health Res. 2022 Jul 12;11(3):22799036221107061. doi: 10.1177/22799036221107061. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Oluwaseun Adeolu Ogundijo¹, Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mustapha^{1

2

3}, Ahmed Tijani Abubakar⁴, Abubakar Musa Imam⁵, Folashade Bamidele¹, Nusirat Elelu^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
² Department of Veterinary Services, Kwara State Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
³ Infectious Diseases and One Health, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universitè de Tours, Tours, France.
⁴ Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
⁵ Nigeria Field Epidemiology Network, Abuja, Nigeria.
⁶ Kwara State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
⁷ Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was in February 2020. The pandemic has resulted in severe social, economic, and public health challenge in Nigeria. Nigeria has experienced pandemic fatigue (PF) characterized by its low testing capacity, poor public adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures, and the urge to return to normal. This viewpoint examines Nigeria's obvious PF amongst Nigerians and believed that community engagement would be a master key to reducing Nigeria's PF and preventing another wave of the pandemic in Nigeria. Community engagement (CE) is a viable way for monitoring the spread of the SARS-CoV-2. CE is cost-effective, improves the chances of people voluntarily presenting themselves for COVID-19 testing at the grass-root level, and could halt the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria especially with the detection of the delta and omicron variants in Nigeria.

Keywords: COVID-19; Community engagement; Nigeria; Pandemic fatigue.