By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Eleven deaths through coronavirus have so far been recorded among the 1.2 billion population in Africa, with The Gambia becoming the 31st country to report a case, which involved a woman who flew in from the United Kingdom on March 17.
Total confirmed cases on the continent by noon on March 18 was 461. South Africa has the highest at 116.
Nigeria reported five new cases on March 18, making a total eight cases, one death.
The rate of infections and number of deaths in Africa pale in comparison with other continents, particularly Asia and Europe.
More than 185,000 people have been infected globally since the outbreak of the pandemic in China in December 2019, said the World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 17.
Figures for both infections and death rise by the hour.
By the evening of March 18 worldwide, there were a total 117,000 active cases; 91, 542 closed cases with an outcome; 83,230 recovered/discharged; and 8, 312 deaths.
Asia has the highest number of cases and deaths, followed by Europe.
The low infection and death rates in Africa are due largely to the hot climate and younger population, both of which factors hinder the survival and spread of coronavirus.
Even though some African countries took early steps to ward off the pandemic, like travel restrictions, the low spread is due more to the climate, not by any effective health design by African governments.
African cases by region
At the time of writing, the regional distribution of confirmed cases in Africa were as follows:
North Africa
Algeria – 60
Egypt – 126
Morocco – 37
Tunisia – 24
Virus-free – Western Sahara, Libya
West Africa
Benin – 1
Burkina Faso – 15
Ghana – 6
Guinea – 1
Ivory Coast – 3
Liberia – 2
Mauritania – 1
Nigeria – 8
Senegal – 27
Togo – 1
The Gambia – 1
Virus-free – Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Mali, Niger
Central Africa
Cameroon – 10
Central African Republic – 1
Congo-Brazzaville – 1
DR Congo – 2
Equatorial Guinea – 1
Gabon – 1
Virus-free – Chad, Sao Tome and Principe
Southern Africa
Eswatini – 1
Namibia – 2
South Africa – 116
Zambia – 2
Virus-free – Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Comoros, Lesotho, Angola, Botswana
East Africa
Ethiopia – 5
Kenya – 3
Rwanda – 7
Seychelles – 4
Somalia – 1
Sudan – 1
Tanzania – 2
Djibouti – 1
Virus-free – Eritrea, Burundi, South Sudan, Mauritius, Uganda
Measures taken
Financial Times reports that many African states are taking earlier action than Europe to suppress coronavirus in an effort to stamp out a disease that may be impossible to control if it takes hold in countries with crowded informal settlements and fragile health systems.
In a strategy that borrows more heavily from Asia than from Europe, a succession of African governments, including Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda, have sought to get ahead of the disease by announcing school closures, bans on social gatherings and travel restrictions despite having recorded only a handful of cases.
In South Africa, the government has declared a national emergency.
In Kenya, Safaricom, which is part government owned, has waived transaction fees for electronic money transfers below $10 to limit public interaction and the handling of cash.
Tanzania has joined other countries in banning handshakes and hugging.
The unfolding strategy came after a sudden spike in the number of African states with confirmed cases rose to at least 27, roughly half of all states on a continent of 1.2 billion people.
Benin, Liberia and Somalia are among the latest to report their first case.
The continent as a whole has around 461 confirmed cases and 11 reported deaths, according to the latest data collated from WHO and national governments, relatively low by European and Asian standards though experts warn that a lack of testing kits means the caseload could be far higher.
Sudan’s first case was reported posthumously.
Inadequate health facilities
“The window is narrowing,” said Michel Yao, head of emergency response at the WHO’s regional headquarters in the Republic of Congo.
“We still have a chance to avoid the worst,” he said, adding that Africa had some advantages, including a younger population and warmer weather, which some predict could slow the spread of the disease.
“If we miss it, it could be a very serious issue. The health system cannot absorb a big number of people falling sick.”
South Africa, which is moving into winter, has only about 1,000 intensive unit care beds in both public and private hospitals for a population of 57 million.
Nigeria, with 200 million people, is estimated to have far fewer.
Health experts say conditions in Africa are different from those in Europe and Asia. Africa’s median age of 19.4 may reduce fatalities, but transmission could be harder to prevent in crowded, poorly sanitised cities, they said.
In the countryside, where population densities are lower, problems from malnutrition to weak immune systems owing to the high prevalence of HIV-Aids in some communities, could also make people more vulnerable.
In South Africa, experts warned of what might happen if the virus reached the townships and informal settlements where most of the black population lives.
“There’s overcrowding and a lack of sanitation. In these areas, once it gets in, we will have widespread infection,” said Atiya Mosam, a doctor and public health specialist in Johannesburg.
Measures to stop transmission were difficult to implement given shortages of piped water and other services, she added. “We say, ‘Wash your hands’. Someone in the informal settlements will say, ‘With what?’”
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that the situation was even more dire in refugee camps, such as those in the Sahel where up to one million people have been displaced by intercommunal violence and a growing jihadist threat.
“How can you do social distancing when thousands of people are crowded together in a tiny camp or refugee settlement?” he said.
Gyude Moore, a government minister in Liberia during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa, said conditions were generally more difficult in Africa because of widespread poverty and unemployment.
Poor people can’t stay at home
It was no good asking people to stay at home when they needed to work every day to survive, he said.
“People do not have resources to stock up. They have to go out and hustle daily to feed their families.”
But Christian Happi, a Cameroonian scientist and director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Nigeria, said African health systems gained experience of dealing with mass infections during Ebola and other outbreaks.
“In terms of understanding diseases and combating outbreaks with limited resources, Africa is much better prepared because they have been for years dealing with these diseases: Ebola, yellow fever, lassa fever, monkey pox,” he said.
“They are permanently in outbreak response mode.”
Happi – one of Africa’s leading scientists – has sequenced the genomes of the Ebola virus, yellow fever and, last week, the coronavirus that an Italian businessman brought to Nigeria in late February in sub-Saharan Africa’s first case.
Nigeria has so far limited the outbreak to eight cases but has been slower than other countries to impose social restrictions.
One irony of the coronavirus spread in Africa, said Yao at the WHO, was that it came mostly from Europe, rather than from China as had been expected.
That was because China, with the exception of Wuhan, had been more successful in containing the virus than Europe, from where flights to many African countries had continued, he said.
With Europe and the US now at the epicentre of the outbreak, Moore, the former Liberian minister, warned that if the virus takes hold in Africa, traditional donors would be of little assistance.
“Health systems back home are not in any way as robust as in the West. They will be overwhelmed quickly,” he said.
“In the past, you could look to the West to help. But they are battling the same thing, so it’s not clear any help is coming at all.”
