Page 25 - Nile Explorer Issue 007

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A cross Africa, officials are bracing

for a rapid spread of the COVID
19 virus, whose spread could devastate
the region, which accounts for 16% of
the global population but just 1% of
health-care spending. While govern-
ments are placing the citizenry into
lockdowns there’s little money for
ventilators and other life-support
equipment needed for severe cases of
Covid-19, just us there are no visible
and dependable plans for the much As expected sustained fight against the tries with strong links to China, the
needed protective gear (PPE’s) for health coronavirus will certainly steer resourc- region’s top trading partner.
workers. es away from malaria and HIV, and Looking at the map of Africa on the
According the WHO lockdowns are not many other diseases that bedevil Africa, COVID 19 tracker, there areas where
the solution; rather surveillance, contact killing hundreds of thousands every cases have not been detected, according
tracing, quarantine, isolation and mass year. If Italy, with 41 doctors per 10,000 to experts, this may mean two things,
testing is what will work for Africa. people, is struggling to contain the either this places are so disconnected to
Unfortunately, the continent lacks disease, the threat to Africa is real, and the rest of the world, or may be a reflec-
testing capacities, relying on the benev- could led to the total collapse of health tion that they may not be having the
olence of developed countries and systems in many countries, the disease capability to test.
China, with the WHO providing a limit- was to sweep across Africa with its
ed number of test kits. struggling Health-Care Systems. Health authorities fret that efforts to
fight the coronavirus will indirectly
The Jack Ma Foundation and the Aliba- Nigeria is where the virus first made contribute to an increase in deaths from
ba Foundation boosted Africa's landfall in sub-Saharan Africa, on Feb. illnesses such as malaria, which kills
response to the coronavirus disease 27, when an Italian businessman tested about 400,000 Africans a year. The
outbreak after the donating medical positive in Lagos, the country’s sprawl- 2014-16 Ebola epidemics, which left
equipment, including over 1.5 million ing, congested commercial capital. It has more than 11,000 dead, highlights the
laboratory diagnostic test kits and over since appeared in an estimated 30 coun- risk of COVID 19 overwhelming
100 tons of infection prevention and tries since, sparking a flurry of respons- health-care systems.
control goods. The shipment was deliv- es to try and control the spread of the
ered in Addis Ababa, the African Union disease. All countries on the continent At the heart of the poor state of health in
headquarters. have set up has set up isolation facilities, Africa lies a failure to tackle extreme
poverty. Today, 46% of the population
The relief initiative was launched by activated emergency operations, with live on less than $1 (£0.55; €0.82) a day,
may declaring lockdowns to minimize
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of movement and crowding of people. a greater proportion than 15 years ago.
Ethiopia, in collaboration with the Jack Meanwhile, The International Mone- The failure to tackle poverty is due to
Ma Foundation and the Alibaba Foun- tary Fund on March 4 pledged to make several inter-related factors, mainly
dation, as part of actions toward imple- $10 billion available at zero interest to economic stagnation, the debt crisis,
mentation of the Africa joint continen- help poor countries, especially in Africa, corruption and wastage.
tal strategy for coronavirus, led by the deal with the virus. The World Health
African Union through the Africa Organization has supplied testing The situation was made worse in the
Centers for Disease Control and equipment and training throughout the 90s, when governments were forced by
Prevention (Africa CDC). IMF to adopt painful structural adjust-
continent while focusing on 13 coun- ment programmes. These required
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