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Here you can gain ground against the coronavirus!
Despite having only seven doctors for every 100,000 inhabitants, Senegal has won many battles in the fight against the pandemic. The BBC’s Mayeni Jones and Naomi Scherbel-Ball analyzed how this African country managed to keep COVID-19 at bay.
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The Dakar laboratory works non-stop and the tests have spread throughout the country. Tests for those with symptoms are free and results are available in eight hours. Although there have been concerns about the low number of tests on the continent, the African Center for Disease Control is supporting countries to increase testing levels and “cheap diagnostic kits” are expected to help a lot.
Ibrahima Diop, 29, who works at a call center in Dakar, fell ill in April and was initially treated for malaria. At the insistence of his mother, who worked in a hospital, he went to get tested and diagnose the coronavirus, along with 60 colleagues. He received immediate treatment and was released from the hospital within a week.
Her case highlighted the need for people to be tested in a country where symptoms can easily be mistaken for malaria, which authorities pointed out during their daily television sessions on the coronavirus.
In March, when the number of cases in Senegal began to increase, Dr. Kane recalls a very difficult situation: “The problem was that I only had 10 beds in intensive care and there were times when I received calls asking for a bed, but I could not receive the patient. This request lasted for about three weeks, until other hospitals were equipped, “he recalls.
The number of recorded daily cases has decreased since mid-August
Senegal, which has a population of 16 million people, has recorded only 15,000 positive cases and just over 300 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic. Many patients with mild symptoms are now being treated at home, with medical staff monitoring their condition in hospital and delivering medications at home, writes BBC WORLD.
Four million people are expected to attend the Grand Magal in Touba this week, the annual religious pilgrimage of the Sengoreze Mouride Brotherhood, one of Senegal’s four tariqa.
Pilgrims queue for hours in the streets of the city to get to the pilgrimage. While posters in the capital show the community leader asking supporters to wear masks, gathering such a large number of people in one place will be a crucial test, as the country tries to maintain progress.
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