The coronavirus outbreak could inflict over 190, 000 deaths across Africa within the space of a year and turn it into the next epicentre of the global pandemic if the warning by the World Health Organisation is anything to go by.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have also issued similar warnings in the recent past but how will this dreaded scenario play out across Africa?
Currently, with confirmed cases still shy of 60, 000, and just over 2000 deaths from the pandemic the continent has surprised many by accounting for just a fraction of the world’s over three million Covid-19 infections.
WHO says experiences gained from tackling major diseases in the past such as Ebola particularly in West Africa are seen as important factors in slow rate of transmission on the continent.
Since the virus went global after its outbreak in Wuhan, China last December, Africa has seen a slower than expected infection rate.
It is in fact slower than all the other regions of the world put together.
But the WHO is warning that by the end of the year, all this could change, with a projected 10 million confirmed cases on the continent.
This naturally raises concern around the hypothetical question around what if Africa lives up to this worst fear by becoming the next epicentre of the coronavirus.
How will this scenario play out in the continent’s 54 countries where most health systems are resource-starved, poorly prepared and badly managed in the best of times and chaotic during pandemics such as the ones witnessed during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014?
Through a study, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) is already jumping ahead of events to conjure up a desperate scenario where over 1.2 billion Africans would be infected if the right measures are not taken to prevent the disease from spreading further into the continent.
This is a staggering figure given Africa’s 1.3 billion inhabitants.
Jeggan Grey-Johnson, the Communication and Advocacy Officer at the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) tells the African Press Agency that It’s hard to see the continent as a whole becoming an epicenter with infections more likely to be heavily concentrated in one or two of its regions.
Grey-Johnson, a former official of UNICEF says Covid-19 itself is not the issue- but the consequences (intended or not) for other non-health sectors such as tourism will be hugely devastating.
“The upshoot will be chaos, deepening poverty and food insecurity; militant adventurism; illegitimate regimes, constitutional crisis, grand public theft of emergency funds...for these reasons, our health systems will not cope” the South Africa-based Gambian expatriate warns.
According to him, health systems not just in Africa are collapsing under the weight of Covid-19 cases, making it difficult to be confident about the continent’s ability to cope and deal with the mounting strain.
“For example in my native Gambia, there is no viable health system to talk about and elsewhere in Africa at least 25 percent of health systems are ruined. Only 20 percent are of functional capacity in the most normal of times. South Africa has the best system and even they are not ready. Recently an infusion of half a trillion Rand was announced, field hospitals are being built but the picture looks bleak” he points out.
With individual health systems incapacitated for many reasons, the head of WHO’s Africa Region Dr. Matshidiso Moeti warns in a recent study that only a proactive strategy could save the continent from the likelihood of Covd-19 featuring permanently in people’s lives for the intervening next few years.
For Jeggan Grey-Johnson, “the saving grace is that the world has to resolve this as a collective, so our risks; investments and burdens are shared”.
He says African governments will have to develop a Pan-African approach to tackling the pandemic together.
“Otherwise the resurgence in the fall (September-November and then winter) will be terrible” he warns.
As more an more African countries begin easing their lockdowns introduced weeks ago to stem the tide of infections, they are realising just how effective these restrictions have been to stop the invisible virus in its tracks and avert a scenario where the crises in their health sectors will not send ripples on all strands of the economy.
AS/APA