Original Research Article
Year: 2020 | Month: December | Volume: 10 | Issue: 12 | Pages: 213-221
Perception, Knowledge and Response to COVID-19 Pandemic among Traders in Three Major Markets in Anambra State, Nigeria
Ekwebene O.C1, Ogbuagu C.N2, Yanmeer S.T3, Orji A.E4, Ani U.C5
1Faculty of Medicine Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nnewi Campus.
2Center for Community Medicine and Primary Health Care, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi.
3Faculty of Public Health and Applied Human Sciences, Kenyatta University Nairobi-Kenya.
4Crown Hospitals Nkpor, Anambra State.
5Department of Surgery, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Ituku-Ozalla.
Corresponding Author: Ekwebene O. C
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of coronavirus disease has been declared a public health emergency of international concern and the virus has spread to many countries and territories. The objective of this study is to assess the knowledge and level of awareness of covid-19 pandemic among traders, To know their perception of covid-19 symptoms, To know if they actually apply the measures put in place by the government to curtail the spread of the virus and to know if the pandemic has actually affected their businesses positively or negatively. The data used for this study was collected from three hundred (n=300) traders in three (3) major markets in Anambra State (Nkwo Nnewi, Eke Awka and Main Market Onitsha) with the aim of understanding their perception, knowledge and response towards Covid19 and its preventive measures as put in place by the government. Majority of the respondents were females (69.50%), married (69.11%) and with FSLC as their highest level of educational qualification (69.60%). From the result it shows that almost all the traders are aware of the existence of covid19 (99.62%). Majority agreed that Covid19 is an infectious disease (58.76%) caused by a virus (89.56%) and its spread through air and droplets (57.78% and 59.83%) respectively. The major sources of information to these traders are television (87.16%), radio (77.52%), facebook (70.64%), friends (58.76%) whatsapp (57.80%) and newspaper (55.50%). Majority of the traders believe some symptoms are consistent with covid-19 which are Cough and catarrh (91.06%), fever (80.08%), headache (65.45%) and sore throat (58.54%). They also disagreed to the existence of any Covid19 vaccine (80.56%) or drugs for its treatment (87.11%). A palpable percentage of the respondents don’t believe covid-19 is real (29.5%) and 62.55% acknowledged that covid-19 has affected their general behaviour with their reason being that they are compelled by government to do so. (57.89%) believed that the lockdown wasn’t necessary their reason being that it wasted people’s time (46.5%), increased hunger (73.43%) paralyzed the economy (55.24%),was an unnecessary stress to people (41.26%), increased violence at home (44.06%), a bridge to peoples human right to freedom (36.36%) and it increased vices in the community (48.25%). 91.70% of respondents said that this pandemic has affected their business negatively while to my greatest surprise 8.70% attested that their business have been positively influenced in growth and income with this pandemic.The result reveals that though the traders carry out some behavioral changes such as Hand washing for every 20 minutes, Social distancing, Physical distancing and Use of hand sanitizers, most do so seldomly (55.86%, 55.29%, 57.60%, 57.25%) respectively except for face mask which most testify to wear in public places (51.55%).
Key words: Corona virus, pandemic, replication, pneumonia.