WHO gives Ramaphosa a Covid-19 pat on the back
• Government did all the right things, says body’s Africa regional director, Matshidiso Moeti
As President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares to ease most of the restrictions that devastated the economy, government handling of the Covid-19 outbreak has won the backing of the top World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Africa.
SA “responded quickly with the types of interventions that we have seen in other countries and that the WHO has recommended”, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said in an online briefing during a visit to Johannesburg on Thursday.
“They did all the right things.” After initially gaining widespread support, SA’s response was soon mired in controversy over the economic costs and criticism of inconsistent lockdown regulations.
SA is set for its biggest economic contraction in 90 years, while a ban on liquor sales prompted companies such as the world’s biggest brewers AB InBev to shelve investment plans, and threatened the wine farms that are the mainstay of the Western Cape’s tourism sector. The WHO now has a team of experts in SA to support the government in its efforts to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak.
More than half the just 1-million plus infections recorded since the first case in the continent six months ago have been in SA.
The country’s official death toll climbed past 11,000, though recent trends point to it having reached a peak. Moeti said the biggest worry was that, after the initial phase in which the disease came mostly from international travel, the biggest worry was that SA would get an uncontrollable surge once it reached the poorer, densely populated areas where it was difficult for people practise social distancing or to stay at home. “Our view is that they did the right thing,” Moeti said. “The situation was extremely difficult because of the context.”
While there could “be a difference of opinion” about the necessity of the country’s prohibitions of trading in liquor and tobacco products, evidence elsewhere provided some support for the steps taken. While the ban on liquor sales in particular has devastated a R140bn industry, the government argued it was necessary to reduce the effect of alcoholrelated trauma and ease pressure on hospital beds.
“We have seen that there is some evidence to support some of what they’ve done,” Moeti said, citing “emerging evidence” that smokers suffered from more complicated forms of Covid-19 infection and were more severely ill.
Countries that had opened up bars, for example, started “to see an uptick in cases as a result of some of the behaviours in terms of not taking into account the social distancing that’s needed”.
With infection rates easing, the continent needed to regain its focus on other challenges such as Ebola and Malaria outbreaks and adolescent pregnancies linked to school closures.
“We need to sustain this momentum on Covid-19 even as movement and gathering restrictions are eased.” Africa had to “continue expanding health capacities beyond capital cities into the hinterland of countries while continuing to adjust to this new normal and mitigating the socioeconomic impact of the crisis”.