WHAT IS HAPPENING IN INDIA CANNOT BE IGNORED BY AFRICA: AU HEALTH CHIEF

Thu 29 April 2021:

The calamitous COVID-19 outbreak in India is a wake-up call for Africa.

African nations generally do not have sufficient numbers of healthcare workers, hospital beds or oxygen supplies – and the continent of 1.3 billion would be even more overwhelmed than India if cases surged in a similar way, said John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

“We are watching with total disbelief … What is happening in India cannot be ignored by our continent,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Nkengasong urged Africans to wear masks and avoid large gatherings, warning: “We cannot and should not find ourselves in [India’s] scenario because of the very fragile nature of our health systems.”

He said all political and religious gatherings and parties should be banned for the time being as they “give the opportunity for the virus to spread.”

The AU will convene a meeting with all African ministers of health on May 8, Nkengasong said, to “put everybody on alert”.

With 1.35 billion people, India has a similar population size to the African continent, yet Africa has weaker health systems, and unlike India does not manufacture significant quantities of drugs or vaccines, he said.

Matshidiso Moeti, Africa’s chief official from the World Health Organization (WHO), also warned that African countries must step up key public health measures to help avoid India’s scenario occurring there.

The rate of testing for the coronavirus has dropped in “quite a few countries”, she said, and mentioned seeing data from one African nation in which the proportion of people not wearing face masks has risen to almost 80 percent.

“We are very concerned about the delays that are coming in the availability of vaccines,” Moeti added.

According to Africa CDC data, the continent recorded nearly 76,000 new COVID-19 infections from April 19 to 25, an 8 percent decline from the previous week.

India reported more than 379,000 new COVID-19 cases and 3,645 new deaths on Thursday alone. It was the highest number of deaths reported in a single day in the world’s second-most populous country since the start of the pandemic.

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