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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2020 | Volume
: 17
| Issue : 2 | Page : 11-12 |
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Looking for sunrise in the horizon in the face of world pandemic
Adesoji O Ademuyiwa
Editor-in-Chief
| Date of Web Publication | 14-May-2020 |
Correspondence Address:
Prof. Adesoji O Ademuyiwa
Editor-in-Chief
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/jcls.jcls_31_20
How to cite this article:
Ademuyiwa AO. Looking for sunrise in the horizon in the face of world pandemic. J Clin Sci 2020;17:11-2 |
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche.
Since the last quarter of the last year, the world was awakened to a rude shock of a novel virus – the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2. What started as an unusual infection in the quiet city of Wuhan has within the last couple of months infected over 1.5 million people spread across all the continents of the globe.[1] The disease has impacted all aspects of human life including social life, economy, sports, and education. Several countries were in lockdown and their health systems overwhelmed. There are several lessons to be learned from the pandemic, but I highlight two here.
First, the world is truly a global village. While the human race has raised artificial borders between countries, races, and haves and have nots, this disease has shown that we are all equal and we should work together to bridge inequalities between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The political class must prioritize health and education to improve capacity and by so doing lift people out of poverty.
Second, this disease has exposed the deplorable state of the health systems in many LMICs including Nigeria. Until the outbreak of Covid-19, only Lagos, Osun, Edo, and the Federal Capital Territory have capacity to conduct the diagnostic test for the condition. The cumulative numbers of ventilators were appalling with only a few hundred at best and many not working well. Moreover, this does not include the poor welfare package and lack of insurance for health workers at the frontline of care. This pandemic has presented a unique opportunity to strengthen the health systems of many countries in LMICs and improve the services to their populations.
For the moment, Africa has the lowest figures of cases of Covid-19, but this may change in the following months.[1] In Sub-Saharan Africa where resources are lean and challenges in provision of personal protective equipment are present realities, some guidelines have been suggested to address these challenges.[2]
On a brighter note, and with particular reference to our journal, the tenure of Prof. Elaine Azinge as Editor-in-Chief ended a few weeks ago. I wish to thank her and the editorial team for steering the affairs of the journal for the past 4 years. She and her team ensured the journal was published as and when due and they worked assiduously to improve the turnaround time of the manuscripts from submission to decision. We shall avail ourselves of the repertoire of experience within her arm's length.
I also thank the Dean of the Faculty of Clinical Sciences of the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos, owners of the Journal of Clinical Sciences – Prof. Joseph D Adeyemi for appointing me as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. I hope we shall be able to deliver on the goals we have set for ourselves in the Editorial Board. These include getting the journal indexed on PubMed, ensure timely publication, improve the turnaround time from submission to decision to 8–12 weeks, conduct training on editorial functions to members of the faculty, and where and when necessary take editorial stand on issues of interest to readers.
Publishing of the journal has been financially challenging, and in the post-Covid-19 pandemic, there have been predictions of huge economic losses to nations and corporate organizations including publishing companies. To mitigate against the effect of such global economic meltdown, the editorial board has come to the painful decision to implement the introduction of article processing charges to be able to sustain the publishing of the journal. Details of the charges are available on the journal website.
Although we are in the midst of a deadly pandemic and the skies seem darkened by the rising number of cases and mortality from the disease, it is our fervent hope that the sun will rise and shine on our world as we conquer the disease and our journal can be a means of that light through communication of new medical knowledge.
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