THE HEALTH BURDEN

OUT OF ALL THE RE GIONS IN the world, Africa is without a doubt the least prepared for a pandemic of this scale. Years of underspending on health care – estimated at around 5% of GDP, or half of the global average – have left the system vulnerable. According to the World Health Organisation, the continent of 1.3bn people has less than 2000 working ventilators across 41 countries, compared to more than 170,000 in the US.

Although they’ve received a boost over the past few weeks, testing capabilities were almost nonexistent when the virus rst struck. Simple hygiene instructions such as regularly washing hands are also hard to follow in many countries, as one-third of Africa’s population do not have access to clean water.

While Covid-19 is putting additional pressure on an already strained heath system, it has nonetheless served to bring the issue to the fore. According to 82% of survey respondents, the crisis will likely or very likely encourage more public spending on the health care sector in their country in the medium to long term.

However, it remains to be seen how Africa and the international community at large are likely to respond, and whether stringent rules will be imposed in the af- termath of the pandemic to ensure spending quotas are met and respected. Past attempts to do so have mostly fallen short.