Nairobi, Kenya (AP) – The continent’s top health official warned on Thursday that more than 2 million cases of coronavirus have been transmitted in Africa, warning “we are inevitably heading for another wave”.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the 54-nation continent has crossed the line. More than 48,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Africa. Its infections and deaths are less than 4% of the global total.
The African continent of 1.3 billion people is being warned of “preventable fatigue” as countries ease epidemic sanctions to ease the pain of their economies and make it easier for more people to travel.
“We cannot survive. If we are faithful, then all the sacrifices we have made in the last 10 months will be destroyed, ”John Nkengasang, director of the CDC in Africa, told reporters. He expressed concern that “many countries are not implementing public health measures, including masking, which is extremely important.”
While the world is hoping for a COVID-19 vaccine, African health officials are also worried that rich countries will buy supplies so the continent will suffer.
First let’s celebrate the good news, Nekengasang said. But he warned that the Pfizer vaccine needs to have a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius, and that such a requirement “creates an imbalance in fair distribution or it is already too rich for vaccines” because rich countries will be better equipped to move quickly.
A storage network with a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius was set up a few years before the devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but it was localized, Nekengasong said. “If we deploy across the continent, it’s very challenging to scale it up,” he said. “Let’s hope in the coming weeks that other vaccines will show greater ease of distribution in resource-limited settings like Africa.”
The Moderna vaccine must have a temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius, which Nekengasong calls promising. But, the cost of any Covid-19 vaccine is another factor in their equitable distribution, he said. “So if the vaccine is 40 it becomes almost exclusive in parts of the world” he could afford.
But he gave an optimistic early look at the attitude across Africa towards any COVID-19 vaccine. Preliminary data from the Vaccine Assumption Survey in 11 countries show that 81% of respondents accept the vaccine, he said. “So that’s very, very encouraging news.”
In a separate briefing, Matsidiso Moti, head of the World Health Organization in Africa, acknowledged that “there is a very hot competition globally for reserve doses”, but hoped that “over time, if other countries want, you will not accept or accept all populations at once.” No need to try to cover. “
Salim Abdul Karim, chairman of South Africa’s COVID-19 advisory committee, said there was no indication that the vaccines promised now would not be as effective in Africa as in other parts of the world.
Some African countries have confirmed six cases of the virus. South Africa leads with over 750,000, followed by Morocco with over 300,000, Egypt with over 110,000 and Ethiopia with over 100,000.
Kenya is the latest concern Because now he sees a new upsurge in cases. At least four doctors were killed on Saturday alone, threatening a nationwide strike starting next month at the country’s powerful health union.
In Kenya and other countries, “there is a definite suspicion that you will see COVID spread to more rural areas,” Nekengansong said, as more people move around.
There have been 20 million coronavirus tests on the African continent since the epidemic began, but the scarcity means the exact number of infections is unknown.
Moti is concerned that in some low-income countries in Africa, limited testing capacity has been used on people who want to travel abroad instead of controlling the virus at home.
___
Follow AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic And https://apnews.com/UndersistancetheOutbreak
.
