The World Health Organisation on Monday noted that the cases and deaths from the coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic in Africa appear unreal.
WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, disclosed this in his opening remarks at a virtual press conference.
Ghebreyesus noted that the figures of confirmed cases and deaths in Africa do not paint the real picture, adding that testing on the continent must be ramped up.
He said,
“So far, although around half of the countries in the region have community transmission, concentrated mainly in major cities, Africa is the least affected region globally in terms of the number of cases and deaths reported to WHO.
“Africa has just 1.5 percent of the world’s reported cases of COVID-19, and less than 0.1 per cent of the world’s deaths. Of course, these numbers don’t paint the full picture.
“Testing capacity in Africa is still being ramped up and there is a likelihood that some cases may be missed.
“But even so, Africa appears to have so far been spared the scale of outbreaks we have seen in other regions.”
The WHO chief said the early set-up of a leaders coalition led by the African Union, under the chairmanship of President Ramaphosa of South Africa, was key to rapidly accelerate preparedness efforts and issuing comprehensive control measures.
He noted that countries across Africa had garnered a great deal of experience from tackling infectious diseases such as polio, measles, Ebola, yellow fever, influenza and many more.
He added,
“Africa’s knowledge and experience of suppressing infectious diseases has been critical to rapidly scaling up an agile response to COVID-19.
“There has been solidarity across the continent. Labs in Senegal and South Africa were some of the first in the world to implement COVID-19 diagnostic testing.
“And beyond that, they worked together with Africa CDC and WHO to extend training for laboratory technicians for detection of COVID-19 and to build up the national capacity across the region.
“Furthermore, health clinicians, scientists, researchers and academics from across Africa are collectively contributing to the worldwide understanding of COVID-19 disease.
“For many years and from the outset of this pandemic, WHO has been working through our country offices to support nations in health emergency preparedness and developing comprehensive national action plans to prevent, detect and respond to the virus.”
