We should give Africa credit for the excellent job its ministries of health, and the Africa Centres for Disease Control, have been delivering when it comes to highly communicable diseases.
Africa has stunned the world by not taking a leading role in the headlines about the global crisis we are now facing with the Coronavirus pandemic. There are numerous theories as to why this is so, ranging from Africa’s experience with epidemics, which has better prepared its countries to isolate victims of highly contagious diseases, to speculation about the disease’s ability to survive warm weather, to the disease has simply not arrived in large numbers, yet.
I was traveling in Africa during February at the time that the Coronavirus was making its way from Wuhan, China to the rest of the world. When I landed in Mauritius, I had to fill out a detailed public health survey while still on the plane, and before I could go through passport control, nurses wearing masks took every passenger’s temperature with a laser infrared temperature gun. Any passenger with a fever was pulled aside, and taken into quarantine. When I landed in South Africa a week later, government staff greeted all arriving passengers with a similar laser infrared temperature gun, as well as thermal cameras that detect elevated body temperature on a large display screen. Passengers with fevers were taken aside and screened further. When I returned home to the United States several days later, there was no screening whatsoever, and anyone with a fever could waltz right into the country.
We should give Africa credit for the excellent job its ministries of health, and the Africa Centres for Disease Control, have been delivering when it comes to highly communicable diseases.
Here is a selection of important stories from varying viewpoints:
- How the economic impact of the virus in China is impacting the livelihood of fishermen in South Africa.
- Interview with one of the authors of an academic study published in the Lancet, the prestigious global medical journal, on Africa’s preparedness and vulnerability to the Coronavirus
- Find the full original article here
- The Africa Centres for Disease Control, founded in 2017, is intensifying its efforts to monitor and respond to the virus in 43 African countries.
- CNN’s reports, from the World Health Organization, of how many cases are confirmed by African country
- BBC’s analysis of the potential impact in South Africa
- New Scientist magazine’s piece surmising why so few cases have been reported in Africa
- The Africa Report’s Three Key Charts that put the epidemic into the African context
- A Reuter’s piece refuting false claims that African skin is resistant to the virus
- Senegal partners with U.K. to develop a rapid results Coronavirus test kit
We will keep you updated on the impact of the virus on Africa in the coming days and weeks.
Kind regards,
Teresa Clarke, Chairman and Executive Editor