Africa, as of Friday morning, has
confirmed about 146 Covid-19 cases on the continent, the World Health
Organisation has said.
The African region of the UN health
agency, in a report on the status of the virus, said all countries in Africa
must act to contain the spread and safeguard the health of its people.
Africa’s Status
The Covid-19 outbreak, which originated
from China, has gotten worse, spreading all over the continents, except
Antarctica.
Africa was one of the last continents
to detect cases of the new coronavirus disease and most of the cases were imported
into the continent.
So far, 18 Africa countries – Egypt,
Algeria, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Togo, Cameron, Cote d'Ivoire,
Ghana, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Tunisia,
Ethiopia, Sudan, Guinea – have reported at least a case of the disease.
As the disease spreads, many African
countries have been taking preventive measures to keep the disease out, while
some are showing a strong level of preparedness to counter its spread.
Egypt
As at the time of reporting, Egypt has
67 confirmed cases reported. This is the highest and more than half of all
confirmed cases on the continent.
Most of the cases in Egypt are among
passengers and crew members aboard a Nile cruise ship coming from the southern
city of Aswan to Luxor, Egypt state-run Ahram Online reported.
Egypt has so far reported two deaths
from the ongoing outbreak.
Tunisia
Tunisia has so far reported seven
confirmed cases. Most of the cases were from travellers who had contracted the
virus after returning from outside the country.
On March 4, the Tunisian Health
Ministry had said that 996 people are in medical homes, quarantined over
suspicion of being infected with the novel coronavirus.
The country also kicked out some
Italian tourists who arrived in Kairouan from Tabarka, after refusing to comply
with the mandatory 14-day quarantine imposed on all visitors.
They were therefore banned from
checking into their hotel in the central city of Kairouan.
Algeria
Algeria reported its second death from
the ongoing coronavirus late Thursday.
The Algerian Health Ministry said in a
statement that the victim was 55 years old.
It added that the number of cases in
the country had risen to 25.
Kenya
Kenya reported its first confirmed case
of COVID-19 on Thursday. The index case was reported in a woman who had
returned to the country from the U.S.
The patient was diagnosed at the
government’s national influenza centre laboratory after travelling home via
London on March 5.
Mutahi Kagwe, Kenya’s health minister,
told a news conference the government had suspended all public gatherings,
sporting events, open-air religious meetings and “all events that are of a huge
public nature.”
He said schools would remain open but
all inter-school events would be suspended.
Contact tracing is however, ongoing.
Kenya already has a 120-bed quarantine
center in is capital, Nairobi, and two testing facilities, which countries in
the region relies on to test for the virus.
South Africa
In South Africa,17 cases of the virus have
so far been reported.
South Africa has also tested more than
600 potential cases.
Citizens can now walk into private
laboratories and pay for private coronavirus tests costing around $75,
according to local media report.
Democratic Republic of Congo.
DRC confirmed its second case of the
virus on Friday.
The patient, according to local media,
is a Cameroonian living in DR Congo, who returned from France on March 8.
Congolese Health Minister Eteni
Longondo said “A Cameroonian who lives in the DR Congo with his family went on
vacation to France and returned to Kinshaa on March 8.
The patient is currently being cared
for by a coronavirus response team in the capital of Kinshasa.
The first patient is a Congolese
national who has been quarantined in Kinshasa.
Morocco
In Morocco, 7 cases of the virus have
been reported.
Morocco’s minister of health announced
the rise in cases on Friday.
The seventh case is that of a citizen
who had recently returned from Spain who tested positive.
After reporting the sixth case on
Wednesday, Morocco cancelled all religious events in a bid to stem the spread
of the virus.
Ghana
Ghana confirmed its first two cases on
Thursday night.
The country’s Minister for Health, Kwasi Agyemang-Manu, made the
announcement at a press briefing.
Both patients according to the minister
are in isolation and are stable.
The government has since initiated
contact tracing.
Gabon
Gabon is the tenth country in Sub-Saharan
Africa to record the first case of coronavirus, after its first case was
confirmed Thursday night.
Its index case according to the
government was a 27-year-old Gabonese man who returned from France on March 8.
Gabon’s minister of communication and
government spokesperson Edgard Miyakou said “they are working to identify the
people who have come into contact with this patient,” and is “calling on the
population to keep calm.”
Burkina Faso
According to the Burkina Faso health
ministry, “more than 13,000 arriving passengers have been monitored with
equipment installed at the Ouagadougou airport, as part of a strategy to tackle
the virus at a cost of some 13 million euros ($14,6 million).”
Burkina Faso confirmed its first two
cases after a Burkinabe couple returned from France on February 24 and tested
positive.
The couple are currently in quarantine
at the Tengandogo teaching hospital, Ouagadougou.
Cameroon
The World Health Organization (WHO)
confirmed Cameroon’s first case on Friday March 6.
The case is that of a 58-year-old
French citizen who arrived Yaoundé on February 24.
Cameroon’s Public Health Minister,
Manaouda Malachiee said in a statement that “the case was placed in solidarity
confinement in the Care Centre of the Yaounde Central Hospital for appropriate
treatment.”
Mr Malachiee advised the public to “be
vigilant and adhere to hygiene rules.”
Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast’s index case was confirmed
on Wednesday.
The patient is an Ivorian, who, after
returning from Italy, went to the hospital with complaints of fever and a runny
nose.
Ivory Coast’s health ministry said in a
statement that the patient has been quarantined and is stable and all
precautionary measures are being taken.
Senegal
A partnership between UK and Senegal
has been formed to develop a hand-held coronavirus testing kit.
CNN reported that a UK-based laboratory,
Mologic is working with Senegal scientists to make a diagnostic kit for the
virus that can “produce test results within 10 minutes.”
The company announced that it is “the
first diagnostic kit developed in the UK to be jointly-manufactured in Africa.”
The project is a UK funded initiative.
Senegal’s health ministry confirmed its
first case of COVID-2019 in the central Senegalese city of Touba.
The patient is a Senegalese national
who resides in Italy but visited a doctor in Touba on March 10 – a day after
showing symptoms. The infection was confirmed by a branch of French-research
group the Pasteur Institute in Dakar.
Despite the confirmed case in the
country, a top cleric, Sheikh Baba, declared that “the disease cannot affect
particularly members of the Baye Niasse community.
“It seems that there is an epidemic
called coronavirus that is panicking the world. The reason why all gathering of
people is prohibited, but Baye Niasse’s family is protected. The corona can do
nothing against it,” he said.
The health minister of Senegal,
Abdoulaye Sarr, told local press that if advised to do so, the government will
call off religious events.
Togo
Togo’s index case was confirmed on
Friday March 6.
The patient, a 42-year-old woman who
recently travelled to Benin, France, Germany, and Turkey.
She returned to Togo from Benin via
road travel, arriving Lome the capital city on March 2.
According to a statement by the
Togolese government, “she has been in isolation at an infectious disease
treatment center and there were no major concerns regarding her health.”
Public authorities on Wednesday
announced that the patient is in a “satisfactory clinical state,” and is not
showing “any fever or symptoms that motivated their hospitalization.”
Nonetheless, the government has urged
citizens to “keep following preventive measures to curb the propagation of the
virus.”
Ethiopia
Ethiopia confirmed its first case of
the virus on Friday.
A Japanese man, 48-years-old, tested
positive for the virus.
“The Japanese man arrived in Ethiopia
from Burkina Faso last week, and he is now receiving medical treatment and is
in good condition,” Ethiopia’s health minister, Liya Kebede, said.
She also added that the “country is
prepared to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.”
Guinea, Sudan
Guinea and Sudan also confirmed their
first case on Friday.
Guinea’s case is that of a European
Union delegation employee, who self-isolated after taken ill upon her return
from Europe.
The case in Sudan is that of a man in
his 50’s who died on Thursday in the capital city Khartoum after being
diagnosed with the virus. The man had just returned from a visit to the United The Arab Emirates in the first week of March.
Sudan has since stopped issuing visas
and flights to Italy, and Egypt over fears of COVID-19.
Nigeria
In Lagos, Nigeria, temperature
screenings and use of hand sanitisers before entering public spaces such as
banks, offices and restaurants are becoming mandatory, to limit the spread of
the disease.
Signs informing the public on the best
practices to avoid contracting coronavirus can be seen in parts of the city.
Scores of health workers have been deployed at international airports in
Nigeria to screen all arriving passengers.
Similar measures have also been adopted
across the continent and passengers with suspected cases of the virus are
placed in quarantine.
WHO’s response
WHO Director-General, Tedros
Ghebreyesus, had on Wednesday classified the ongoing outbreak as a pandemic.
This was due to the erratic spread of
the disease across countries in the world. As of time of reporting, about
125,000 cases have now been reported to WHO, from 118 countries and
territories.
In the past two weeks, the number of
cases reported outside China has increased almost 13-fold, and the number of affected
countries has almost tripled.
The second reason the WHO DG gave, “is
that despite our frequent warnings, we are deeply concerned that some countries
are not approaching this threat with the level of political commitment needed
to control it.”
WHO Regional Director for Africa,
Matshidiso Moeti said “with Covid-19 officially declared a pandemic, all
countries in Africa must act.”
He added that “every country can still
change the course of this pandemic by scaling up their emergency preparedness
or response. Cases may still be low in Africa and we can keep it that way with
robust all-of-government actions to fight the new coronavirus.”
Containment, according to WHO is the
most appropriate strategy for African countries. In order to do that the WHO
Regional Office for Africa is “shifting from readiness to response mode.”
People who have come in contact with
those confirmed to have the virus are being traced and efforts are being made
to encourage early detection and surveillance capabilities at ports, airports
and land crossings.
WHO reports that there are 62 of their
experts in technical areas- coordination, treatment, infection, prevention and
control, community engagement and surveillance who have been deployed across 18
countries, and even more, deployments are planned.
These experts are “assisting national
governments in their response, helping them to manage the disease and prevent
onward transmission.”
Tools for Member States are being
developed to help with the “rapid collection and reporting of alerts, cases and
contact data, streamlining and eventual contact tracing.”
A WebEx training was recently held to
help surveillance focal points and data managers’ in-country on the use of
these tools.
WHO is also striving to fill critical
gaps such as the demand for personal protective equipment (PPE)- gloves, masks,
hand sanitizers and will focus mainly on countries with confirmed cases and
also their neighbouring countries.
“In addition, transfers of PPE from
WHO’s main warehouse in Dubai to a regional distribution hub in Accra is
underway, and nine countries in the African region are due to receive
deliveries of PPE directly from Dubai. At a global level, WHO is preparing new
guidance on the proper use of PPEs.”
Virus transport media (VTMS), which are
“container for safe and secure transportation, maintenance and storage of
clinical samples containing viruses” are also emerging. Countries with critical
shortages are the first priority.
Source: Premium
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