Africa must not be ‘neglected’ in virus fight
African officials objected yesterday to the global jostling to obtain medical equipment to combat the coronavirus, warning that if Covid19 is left to spread on the continent the world will remain at risk.
‘‘We cannot be neglected in this effort,’’ the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters. ‘‘The world will be terribly unsafe, and it will be completely naive, if countries think they can control Covid-19 in their countries but not in Africa.’’
South Africa acknowledged the challenges as it extended its lockdown by two weeks, with President Cyril Ramaphosa saying, ‘‘This is a matter of survival, and we dare not fail.’’
Equipment in Africa is scarce. The World Health Organisation says fewer than 5000 intensive care unit beds are available across 43 of the continent’s 54 countries: ‘‘This is about 5 beds per 1 million people in the reported countries compared to 4000 beds per 1 million people in Europe.’’ Functional ventilators in public health services across 41 countries number less than 2000, a severe shortage for patients in respiratory distress.
While Africa’s 1.3 billion people had a head start in preparing for the pandemic as the virus spread in China, Europe and the United States, Nkengasong warned that ‘‘the very future of the continent will depend on how this matter is handled’’ as cases, now over 11,000, quickly rise.
‘‘The worst is still to come,’’ he said, and pointed to the global Spanish flu pandemic of a century ago when cases came in waves.
Africa is also competing with the developing world for testing kits that will help give a clear number of cases, as well as protective equipment that frontline health workers desperately require. Already, anxious workers have gone on strike or gone to court in places like Zimbabwe
over the lack of gear. ‘‘We may not actually know how big is the size of the problem’’ without scaling up testing, Nkengasong said.
While 48 of Africa’s 54 countries now have testing capability, that often is limited to countries’ capitals or other major cities, WHO officials told reporters in a separate briefing.
There is an ‘‘urgent need’’ to expand testing, the WHO Africa chief, Matshidiso Moeti, said, noting that clusters of community transmission have emerged in at least 16 countries. That means the virus has begun spreading beyond the initial cases imported from abroad.
‘‘Some countries might face a huge peak very soon’’ in cases, said the WHO’s emergency programme manager, Michel Yao. Even if testing kits and other equipment are found, another challenge is delivering them. Cargo space is rare because many airlines have stopped flights to African destinations.
Close to 20 African countries have closed their borders, and several are under lockdown. Now millions of people are bracing for lockdown extensions after regional leader South Africa’s announcement.
If the country’s lockdown ends too soon, ‘‘we risk a massive and uncontrollable resurgence of the disease,’’ Ramaphosa said.
In the two weeks before the lockdown began two weeks ago, the average daily increase in South Africa’s new cases was around 42 per cent, but since the start of the lockdown the average daily increase has been around 4 per cent, he said.
South Africa has the most confirmed cases in Africa with more than 1900.
‘‘We are only at the beginning of a monumental struggle,’’ Ramaphosa said. ‘‘We cannot relax and we cannot be complacent.’’
The economic toll, however, has been harsh. The World Bank in a new report said sub-Saharan Africa was expected to fall into recession for the first time in a quartercentury. –