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The new coronavirus has already caused confusion in wealthy countries in Asia and Europe, when a United Nations agency said in April that even with social distancing measures, the virus could transport 300,000 people this year. The life of the African population.
In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that 190,000 people could die on the continent if measures to contain the virus fail. people.
With more than a million deaths from COVID-19, Africa is doing much better than expected. The death rate here is lower than on other continents.
According to Reuters data on Monday, the continent’s death rate is 2.4 percent. – more than 1.4 million Approximately 35,000 people are infected with COVID-19. deceased. Mortality is 2.9 percent in North America and 4.5 percent in Europe.
In countries severely affected by coronavirus, such as Italy and the United Kingdom, it was 11.6%. and 9 percent. mortality. In Ethiopia, the death rate is 1.6%, in Nigeria 1.9% and in South Africa, the most affected country on the continent, 2.4%.
Hospitals in most African countries report that the number of COVID-19 patients is declining.
“Based on what we have seen so far, it is unlikely that we will face numbers on the scale recorded in Europe, both in terms of infections and mortality,” said Rashida Ferrand, Parirenyatwa Professor of Medicine at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. From london. network hospital in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.
According to experts, some COVID-19 deaths in Africa may not have been recorded.
The test volumes are approximately 1.3 billion. The continent with a human population is one of the smallest in the world, many deaths caused by various factors remain unrecorded.
Between the beginning of May and mid-July, approximately 17,000 people died of natural causes in the Republic of South Africa. more people than usual: 59 percent. more than could be predicted under normal circumstances, according to a report by the Medical Research Council of the Republic of South Africa published in July.
According to scientists, these statistics suggest that the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 may be significantly higher than officially announced (based on current data, more than 16,000).
But even if this is indeed the case, experts unequivocally agree that mortality from COVID-19 is still not as high as predicted.
Why is that? Scientists and public health experts point to many possible factors, including the continent’s young population and lessons learned from previous outbreaks.
African governments also had enough time to prepare for an epidemic due to adequate isolation: most people did not end up at airports or other places where they could contact travelers from all over the world.
Some researchers are also examining the possibility that a tuberculosis vaccine, which is routinely given to children in many African countries, could help reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19.
Another theory being considered is that previous exposure to other coronaviruses, including those that cause colds, may have developed some resistance in some communities that were previously considered the most vulnerable.
“There is a lot of circumstantial evidence, but there is no indisputable obvious evidence,” Salim Abdool Karim, a South African infectious disease specialist who advised the government on COVID-19, told Reuters.
Learned lessons
The virus covered Africa later than other continents, giving doctors more time to set up additional temporary hospitals, provide oxygen and artificial lung ventilation, and learn about treatments elsewhere.
“It just came to our notice then. We had time to prepare, others didn’t get a chance,” says Thumbi Mwangi, principal investigator at the Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases at the University of Nairobi.
One reason for the better situation may be that overseas travel is restricted in many African countries and domestic travel is more difficult here than on other continents, says Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization director for the African region.
Continental governments have already had to deal with deadly communicable diseases like Ebola, which killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2013 and 2016. people. So officials stumbled and took action when the new coronavirus suddenly began to spread across the world earlier this year.
In many African countries, temperature measurements were soon introduced at airports, flights from countries severely affected by the coronavirus were suspended, and social distance rules and masks were introduced.
In the week since Kenya reported its first coronavirus case, schools in the country were closed, a mandatory quarantine was imposed on arriving travelers and large gatherings were banned.
Nigeria, the most populous African country, has introduced a travel ban and a curfew. Most of the country’s land borders have already been closed since August 2019 to combat smuggling, a circumstance that has also helped combat the pandemic.
South Africa imposed some of the tightest restrictions in the world in late March, when the country only had about four hundred confirmed cases.
“Africa has taken strong action against coronavirus in the past,” said Tim Bromfield, director of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a UK-based think tank, and a region for East and South East Africa.
Experts also point to the demographic situation on the continent.
Studies have shown that the risk of severe COVID-19 increases with age.
A 2019 United Nations report indicates 62 percent. In sub-Saharan Africa, the population is under the age of 25, and only 3 percent are 65 or older. According to the United Nations, 28% of the European and North American region population is under 25 years of age and people aged 65 and over represent 18 percent. population.
Chikwe Ihekweazu, director of the Nigerian Center for Disease Control, says one reason for the country’s relatively low death rate may be that most patients are between 31 and 40 years old.
Can immunization be trusted?
Researchers in some countries, including the Republic of South Africa, are investigating whether the century-old BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guerin) vaccine, widely used on the continent to protect against tuberculosis, provides some immune protection.
BCG vaccines have been shown to protect against other viral respiratory diseases, and a study published in July in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that mortality from COVID-19 is lowest where vaccination against tuberculosis is most intense. .
Studies have also started in South Africa and Zimbabwe to assess the effects on other previously encountered coronaviruses.
More than half of the population in African cities is concentrated in slums, where hands are rarely washed and maintaining physical distance is almost impossible.
Under these conditions, the disease is spreading rapidly, but some scientists speculate that this may be an unexpectedly favorable circumstance in this case. There is evidence that T cells produced by the body’s immune system after exposure to other cold coronaviruses can help fight COVID-19.
“I would say that this is at least one plausible explanation for why levels of resistance to the virus also vary from population to population,” said Thomas Scriba, immunologist and deputy director of the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Organization.
Others are more skeptical about this possibility.
“All other regions have also been exposed to coronavirus in the past, they have slums and poor people, and they have been vaccinated with the BCG vaccine. It seems that we probably need to find an effective combination of many factors, not a magic pill, ”explains Humphrey Karamagi, head of the WHO Regional Data and Analysis Team for Africa.
Sam Agatre Okuonzi of the Arua Regional Hospital in Uganda argues that the grim predictions have been influenced by entrenched stereotypes, including the idea that the continent is vulnerable to disease.
“COVID-19 has destroyed many skewed images, not only in general, but also in Africa in particular. The course of the pandemic did not coincide with the shocking forecasts,” the specialist has no doubts.
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