MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Somalia is a rare place where most of the population has not taken the coronavirus seriously, as rich countries race to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. Some know it has proven to be more terrible than anyone knows.
“Certainly our people do not use any kind of protective measures, neither masks nor social distance,” said Abdirizak Yusuf Hirabe, the government’s COVID-19 incident manager. “If you walk around the city (Mogadishu) or around the country, no one talks about it.” And yet the infection is on the rise, he said.
Those are places like Somalia, the Horn of Africa country torn apart by three decades of conflict, which would be the last to see a significant amount of COVID-19 vaccines. While the al-Shabab extremist group linked to al-Qaeda is still participating in some parts of the country, the risk of the virus becoming localized in some hard-to-reach areas is strong – fear in parts of Africa amid the slow arrival of the vaccine.
“There has been no real or practical investigation into the matter,” said Hirabah, who is also the director of Mogadishu’s Martini Hospital, the largest COVID-19 patient receiving treatment, seeing seven new patients the day he spoke. He acknowledged that there were not enough facilities in Somalia to control the virus.
Somalia, a country of more than 15 million people, has had less than 27,000 tests for the virus, one of the lowest in the world. Less than 4,800 cases have been confirmed, including at least 130 deaths.
Some are worried that the virus will infect the population, as there is a poor diagnosis yet, but there is a fatal fever.
For Hassan Mohammad Yusuf, a 45-year-old street beggar, that fear has turned into certainty. “Initially, we saw the virus in another form of the flu,” he said.
Her three young children then died of cough and high fever. As residents of makeshift camps for people displaced by conflict or famine, they had no access to coronavirus testing or proper care.
At the same time, Yusuf said, the virus harms his family’s efforts to solicit money, as “we can’t get close enough” for people to beg.
At the onset of the epidemic, the Somali government took several steps to limit the spread of the virus, close all schools and close all domestic and international flights. Mobile phones ring with messages about viruses.
But social distance has long disappeared from the country’s streets, markets or restaurants. On Thursday, about 30,000 people stormed a stadium in Mogadishu without seeing face masks or other antivirus measures for a regional football match.
The mosques of the Muslim nation have never faced sanctions for fear of repercussions.
“Our religion taught us hundreds of years ago that we should wash our hands, face, and feet five times a day, and that women should wear veils because they are often weak. So if there is a complete cure for this disease, if it really exists, said Abdul Qadir Seth Mohammed, an Imam from Mogadishu.
Ahmed Abdul Ali, a shop owner in the capital, said: “I leave the matter to Allah to protect us. He attributed the emergence of cough during prayer to the change of asons tuo.
Dr. Ab working in a clinic in the capital. Abdurhman Abdullahi Abdi Bilal said that a more important protective factor is the youth of Somalia. More than 80% of the country’s population is under 30 years of age.
“The virus is here, absolutely, but people’s resilience is due to age,” he said.
He said there was a lack of postmortem examination in the country to find out the true extent of the virus.
The next challenge in Somalia is not only to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but also to persuade people to accept it.
It will take time, “he said.” The polio or measles vaccine was what we thought it was for our people, “said Bilal.
Citing Somalia’s virus response, Hirabeh agreed that “our people have little faith in vaccines”, saying that many Somalis hate needles. He called for serious awareness campaigns to change thinking
The logistics of any COVID-19 vaccine rollout is another major concern. Hirabeh said Somalia expects the first vaccine in the first quarter of 2021, but he is concerned that there is no way to handle a Pfizer-like vaccine in the country that needs to be kept at a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius.
“Putting it between minus 10 and minus 20 would be like our country to the Third World,” he said.
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