COVID-19 May Be Transmitted Through Air – NCDC

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Monday noted that new evidence has revealed that Coronavirus can be transmitted through the air.

The development was revealed by the Director-General of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

According to the DG of NCDC, before now Coronavirus was believed to only transmit through droplets which emanate from the nose and the mouth.

Ihekweazu in his statement noted that the research carried out shows that the virus may also be airborne.

The NCDC boss said, “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.”

“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.”