The Roles Of Societies In Tackling Pandemics -By Salim Yakubu Akko

Pandemics are diseases outbreak in a particular geographical area, spread generally and affects a large number of population living in a particular continent and the world at large. These pandemics include: COVID-19, Lassa Fever, Ebola Virus, HIV/AIDS, Influenza and so on. The strong built walls of the world are now facing an inevitable fall due to the everyday break of these deadly pandemics. And this is easily understandable considering the unspoken effects they have on individuals and the world at large in everyday life. The life of individuals in the societies has become very frightening and tedious, for which people choose death than living in these monstrous pandemics bedeviling the world in every sector.

The rate at which death rate increases everyday has become more rampant and fearful. It had been observed and totaled that over three million people had died due to the current and quick spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Many more affected personalities are dying everyday due to this pandemic and millions of people had lost their lives due to other outbroken deadly spread of pandemics in the world in the past years.

The impacts of these pandemics on the world economy is another worrisome factor. The economic growths of countries were greatly disrupted. Especially the African countries that are battling with low economic stabilities; it lead the entire continent into extreme hunger and poverty. We can all see, during these pandemics, there are no imports or exports of goods for sale in many countries.

Even in our hometowns, none will tend to come out with the intention of buying or selling something. Henceforth, since we now understand that there’s a direct connection between the educational sector and economic growth of any country, and due to the closure of schools, the economy of any particular country would however, weaken.

The educational sectors in the world had also been greatly affected due to the spread of these pandemics. Students that are supposed to graduate in 3 to 4 years, would end up graduating in 5 to 6 years time due to the long closures of schools during these pandemics periods. The most devastating issue would be graduating of unqualified students because of the long pandemic break which would however make many students forget the lessons they were taught previously.

The roles of societies in tackling the quick spread of these pandemics can not be underestimated. Societies are the back-bone and rigidities of bringing these deadly viruses to an end. This can be solely comprehended by experiencing the above roles that societies should play in tackling the spread of pandemics.

Every member of a particular society has a role to play in tackling these pandemics. This is dependent on the discipline one studied. As a sociologist, a doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher, pharmacist and so on ; all play vigorous roles in tackling the pandemics in one way or the other.

Firstly, as a Doctor, the role that you should play in tackling these pandemics is by ensuring every member of a society maintain personal hygiene. Since some pandemics exists as a result of uncleanliness; if every member of a society should maintain personal hygiene by cleaning himself/herself and the rate of these pandemics will effectively reduced.

Also, as an Environmental Health Scientist you also have a role to play in tackling these pandemics. This can be done by ensuring all the surroundings are cleaned. When you observed that a particular society is full of dirty materials, you should advise the members of that society to clear the dirty surroundings in order to avoid the outbreak of these contagious diseases.
Sociologist can help extensively in abating these pandemics by interacting, orienting, and mobilising people. By doing this, people that were not well oriented on the effects of these pandemics to individuals in the society would be well oriented and would play a wholesome role in tackling these pandemics.
As a Teacher, you should ensure that social distancing is observed in the classes, school premises and school environment. This is a role you should play to in tackling these pandemics. By maintaining social distancing in schools; the spread of these pandemics would be drastically reduced.
As a Laboratory Health Scientist, You should ensure that every member of a society has a medical check-up； ensuring regular health check-up should be a great role you should play in tackling these pandemics. Some pandemics would not show their symptoms on a particular infected person for long; one would think he/she is in good health and condition until he/she had a medical check-up. These pandemics would easily spread among nations when one does not have adequate medical checkup.

However, the role you should play as a member of a particular society in tackling these pandemics is to avoid eating animals that might carry the deadly viruses; such animals are: monkeys, dogs, bats, etc. As researched by scientists, the great percentage of viruses were brought mostly by animals. As they said : the 2014 Ebola Virus, the current Corona Virus Pandemic, Lassa Fever and so on were brought by wild animals. According to them: Lassa Fever was brought by Rat, COVID-19 was brought by Pangolins and Ebola Virus by Bat.

Ensuring the good health of animals should also be observed. Some animals as reported by Zoologist are very dangerous and could contain the deadly viruses. Every society should check the health of all animals living in a particular society.

A Historian is not left behind also. We all know and believed that history is the book that teaches us the lessons of Today. As a Historian, you should write books on these pandemics that occurred in the past and how there were curbed. People will however use the ideas of how there were tackled and experiment it the same way as done in the past.

As a Pharmacist, the role you should play in tramping out the pandemics is indeed a great role, you should extensively make researches on these pandemics and invent medicines that would fight against these pandemics. And Engineer on the other hand should invent machines that will help in studying these pandemics.

Finally, I strongly, vigorously and wholly believed if every member of a society would apply his/her disciplined career in tackling pandemics, there would be the minimalization of these pandemics in the world within a blink of an eye.

Salim Yakubu Akko is a Nigerian essayist and poet. His works have appeared in The Nation News Nigeria, Daily Trust Newspaper, Independent Nigeria, Peoples Daily Newspaper, Opinion Nigeria and elsewhere. He is a member of Gombe Jewel Writers Association and Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation.