The mild impact of the coronavirus in Africa intrigues scientists | World

While in other continents the number of infections and deaths skyrocketed, Africa was saved from a high death rate from the coronavirus. And this, despite the fact that, in cities like Dakar or Lagos, citizens push each other, many live in poverty and in worrying hygiene conditions.

Thus, a group of scientists published in the journal Science an analysis of the possible causes of this relatively mild course of the pandemic in the region. One of the factors presented is that “measures such as travel restrictions, curfews and school closings were applied early in Africa, compared to other continents – often even before the country has a single Covid-19 case. ”

The report’s authors attribute this willingness to take early action to the experiences of several African nations with infectious diseases like Ebola or Lassa hemorrhagic fever – the quick reaction likely resulted in a slower spread of the disease.

“We know that these measures have an effect,” confirms Edward Chu, emergency medicine advisor for the NGO Doctors Without Borders. “However, it is more difficult to maintain severe measures for a long time. We assume that with future relaxation, the number of cases will also increase.”

Even so, the researchers continue, there must be other reasons why the most extreme scenario did not occur, since “most of them work in the informal sector, for example in traditional fairs, where there is no way to impose extreme measures of lockdown”.

Chances of a good African result

Age could be one of these reasons. The average age on the African continent is 19.7 years, half that of the United States, and although Sars-Cov-2 also infects the young, it is usually the elderly who are hospitalized in serious condition and die.

Low rates of infection may also be related to age, as most asymptomatic cases occur among young people. Because they don’t feel ill, they undergo tests and exams less frequently, especially if the country’s health system is already weakened and testing capabilities are reduced. Overall, “the lack of resources for testing makes it extremely difficult to define the actual impact of the pandemic on the populations of African states,” Chu explains.

The researchers suggest that immunity to pathogens could be another factor in the pandemic situation in Africa.

This could decisively mitigate the course of an infectious disease and be one more reason why, so far, the high number of Covid-19 victims expected for the region has not materialized. The immunologist and parasitologist Achim Hoerauf investigates this hypothesis at the Bonn University Clinic.

He is especially interested in worms that live more or less harmoniously, like parasites, in the body of many Africans. This coexistence is only possible because helminths do not provoke a strong reaction of the host’s immune system, indicating, through certain secretions, that there is no cause for alarm.

“It could be that the contagion with Covid-19 is better tolerated,” speculates Hoerauf. An exaggerated immune reaction is one of the known causes of particularly violent cases of Covid-19.

While parasites possibly favor a mild clinical picture, non-infectious diseases increase the risk of worsening, and cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes are typical of industrialized Western countries. At least for now, because in the urban areas of African nations these civilizing diseases are already beginning to take hold.

AIDS and hunger also kill

Although the dreaded big bang has not happened so far, Sars-Cov-2 has not completely saved Africa. “The virus had a huge indirect impact on many inhabitants of African countries. In several of them, collateral damage caused by measures to contain the pandemic could be much more damaging than the direct action of the virus“Chu alert.

Here, young people are the most affected: especially for children, the lack of food and medicine often has fatal consequences. Thus, in May, the organization Unaids already pointed out bottlenecks in the supply of antiretroviral drugs, which are essential for AIDS therapy.

Due to the closure of land borders and the temporary suspension of flights, a supply gap has opened, exacerbated by the fact that HIV drugs are also used to treat Covid-19 patients.

Unaids and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that measures against the pandemic may cause an additional 500,000 deaths from AIDS. And in July, the humanitarian organization Oxfam warned that this would also be the cause of 12,000 daily starvation deaths, by the end of 2020. Six of the ten “hotspots” defined by Oxfam are on the African continent.