Why has Africa seen few virus deaths?
York U professor theorizes younger population on continent has helped it weather COVID-19
Experts have expressed fears that COVID-19 will ravage Africa, but a Toronto expert in human geography has a theory about why that hasn’t happened.
Professor Joseph Mensah, the former chair of York University’s geography department now on sabbatical in Ghana, believes that Africa’s population characteristics have resulted in a comparatively younger demographic less susceptible to dying from the coronavirus.
“I lot of people are getting infected in Africa but not dying. I’m suggesting it’s because of the youth population,” Mensah said in an interview this week from Accra, Ghana’s capital.
Experts such as Human Rights Watch Africa director Mausi Segun had expressed fears that weak public health and health care systems, as well as dense urban zones and displacement, would enable the coronavirus to ravage Africa. He expressed additional concerns that outbreaks of measles and cholera would add to health problems on the continent.
Bruce Bassett, a data scientist at the University of Cape Town who is keeping track of COVID-19 data, said in March he feared the coronavirus is a “ticking time bomb.”
But according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University and the African Centre for Disease Control, the African continent, made up of 54 countries and a population of1.3 billion people, has more than 250,000 cases of COVID-19, but only 6,800 deaths. About 114,000 people have recovered.
Compare that to the UK, which has a comparable number of cases — nearly 300,000 — but a far higher death count, 42,000 people according to Johns Hopkins figures.
While data is showing the virus is claiming some young lives around the world, the majority of victims have been seniors, those 75 and older.
Mensah, the population expert from York, said based on the demographic transition model, a fundamental concept in population education experts use to track countries’ population growth rates, most countries in Africa have high birth rates and lowering death rates resulting, Mensah argues, in a youthful population.
According to the transition model, most developing countries, including most of the countries in Africa, are in Stage 2 or 3, where modern medicines have lowered death rates, particularly for children. Birth rates are high, or are decreasing slowly, resulting in population growth.
Advanced countries are in Stage 4, some in Stage 5, the former characterized by a stabilized population where both birth and death rates are low — fertility rates about two children per household. Stage 5 is where fertility has fallen below the two child level and the elderly population is greater than the number of young people.
There are some limitations to the model. For example, it doesn’t take into account human migration.
Mensah said the transition model has impacted the median age of countries. For example, the median in Canada is about 41 years old, Italy about 45, but in African countries it’s about 19.
“If you run into someone on the street in Canada, chances are they’ll be in their early 40s. In Africa, the chances are that person will be 18 to 20.
“We (in Africa) are poor but younger,” said Mensah, who came to Canada in 1987 from his birthplace Ghana under a graduate academic scholarship at Wilfrid Laurier University, where he earned his master’s degree in human geography. He later earned a PhD, also in human geography, from the University of Alberta.
His sabbatical in Ghana is to work on a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant for a five-year study on return migration of African immigrants in Canada.
He has a ticket to fly back to Toronto July 11, but the airport in Ghana is closed due to COVID-19.
In terms of the spread of the virus, Canada and the U.S. have seen the pandemic spread like wildfire in seniors’ homes, claiming thousands of lives.
Mensah called seniors’ homes a “western concept” that isn’t much used in Africa and other developing countries. That, he said, offers another reason why the coronavirus hasn’t spread rapidly in Africa — no clusters of vulnerable seniors in retirement homes.
Currently, families provide most longterm care in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a 2017 report by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Aging parents live with their families for the most part,” Mensah said.
In terms of COVID-19 cases, Ghana, Nigeria, Algeria and South Africa have seen the largest numbers on the continent. Mensah said that’s not a surprise given these countries are international hubs.
“On the African continent, there are countries that have a lot of mobility across them and within, as well as a lot of external links. Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, etc. have a lot of people passing through in a very short time. Flights are coming in and out all over the place. Intra and inter-country mobility.”