THE numbers coming from ministry of Heath on new infections and deaths related to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is very scary.
The deaths of close friends or family members send a cold chill down the spine and it is for a very good reason because this disease is unforgiving.
The fact that the pandemic is from a virus, brings a new and big complication to humanity because to date, despite the technological advancement, there is no known cure for it.
The ugly property of a virus as we saw from the Human Deficiency Virus (HIV) was its annoying ability to mutate and come back stronger and more devastating.
That is exactly what we are seeing in the Coronavirus with each wave that comes.
Eye specialists at Agarwals Eye Hospital in Lusaka have dropped some damning details that suggests that eye trouble we have been ignoring could be a sign that one is infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
Celestin Habiyakare revealed that an average of five in every 40 patients (12.5 percent) that visit the hospital with eye problems in a day would be Covid-19 positive.
This tells that no symptoms should be treated lightly. Waiting for a flu-like feeling and difficulties in breathing to suspect Covid-19 infection is cheating oneself.
From this we can see that the Coronavirus is mutating and it is safe to say that it is here to stay.
The feeling people have that this pandemic will be all gone forever after a passing cold season is a thought we might want to do away with.
The Coronavirus will keep coming and attack the human body in various ways and just like its HIV relative, it is something humanity will have to learn to live with- likely forever.
The most decent thing to do for now is to learn to protect oneself and fight it off with any means possible once one is infected.
The belief that science will deal with this virus a once-off knock-out blow is something that may never come.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that the virus mutates at any chance to spread more and adapts to a particular environment.
“The more opportunities a virus has to spread, the more it replicates – and the more opportunities it has to undergo changes,” says WHO’s Vaccines Explained series.
The same WHO series goes on to say that the approved vaccines “are expected to provide at least some protection against new virus variants because these vaccines elicit a broad immune response involving a range of antibodies and cells”.
This simply entails that the vaccines are not an assurance that one is forever protected and because the coronavirus is new, its mutation remains something no scientist can predict.
So the best Zambians can do is protecting themselves as much as possible. This lifestyle change may not be short-term but permanent.
So like Geetha Sivaraj, a senior eye consultant in Lusaka advises, people need to present themselves to medical facilities for checkups after any suspicious feeling as the virus might have mutated to something not noticed yet by the medics.