Why Africa is Recording Significantly Lower Number of COVID-19 Cases Relatively to The Other Parts of The World.

He novel coronavirus – nomenclatured by the WHO as COVID-19– originated in Wuhan in China, a city with a population of 11 million – approximately 8,500 square kilometers. The COVID-19 outbreak has succeeded in sweeping out of China across the world. currently, over 1,795,747 cases and over 110,005 deaths globally have been reported. Yet of these, only about 14,346 cases and 750 deaths have been on the African continent as at 12 April, 2020.

Initially,we were seeing headlines such as“African countries are at severe risk”, and“Bill Gates warns the coronavirus could hit Africa worse than China.”Evidence of this potential was set out in a widely circulated Lancet study, which ranked the vulnerability of African countries to the virus due to the fact that their health-care systems are (with a few exceptions)a wreck. at the moment. But the situation proves the opposite as at now Africa have recorded the cases of the covid- 19 even though the virus is still raveling around the world. That said, Africa has not yet been hit hard. Egypt reported the first African confirmed case of COVID-19 on February 14th, becoming the 25th country in the world to do so, 45 days after China alerted the WHO on December 31st. now about 52 countries on the continent have reported a total of 14346 COVID-19 cases. Considering the vulnerability that the Lancet study pointed out, surely this figure seems surprising.

Medical experts and other interested parties are reportedly confused – wondering if there is under-reporting going on in Africa. In order to understand the situation, as one of other things that can be done, we need to take a brief look at the history of how other pandemics and epidemics have manifested themselves in the continent. Despite the huge numbers in China and increasing numbers world-wide, it is not surprising that the first case was detected so late, and there are still relatively so few cases. A glance at which history may help us understand why.

In the past, other major epidemics or pandemics with origins outside Africa have also seen significant delays in reaching the continent, and have reached in much smaller numbers compared to other regions.

In 2009, H1N1 spreaded to up to 60 countries outside of Africa before Egypt reported its first case two months after its first occurrence in Mexico. H1N1 eventually spread to 41 African countries, with over 8000 cases and 160 deaths on the continent. Overall, the deaths across Africa represented 1% of the total reported deaths worldwide.

Also, in 2002-2003, SARS entered Africa 5 months after it first spread in China, with South Africa becoming the 17th country in the world to report. No other country on the continent reported a case thereafter.

We may be seeing exactly the same patterns with COVID19, simply repeated in a new decade.

What could be the reason? Is there under-reporting going on? Are Africa’s health systems unable to detect cases? Or perhaps,as being shared on social media, Africans have some sort of genetic make-up that resists the virus? This is not about under reporting, health systems, nor is it about racial differentiation. It is about Africa’s relationship among its countries and its relationship with the rest of the world.

In this context, the reason why Africa is not yet being strongly affected by COVID19 is not that the continent is somehow genetically more resilient, or that screening from flights and other necessary detection and management tools are poor. Right now, African countries are, as they have been with other epidemics in past decades, effectively “onlookers” with regards to COVID19 because Africa’s movement in and out with both China and the rest of the world is far behind others. In fact, there isn’t much within African nor intercontinental movement of African as compared with a continent such as Europe where there is easy intra movement and relatively easy intercontinental movement of European citizens. In this regard African can be considered lucky since the number of imported cases (which is one of the main channels through which the virus is being spread) are relatively low.

Having relatively few intra and international connections has given Africa a stretch of time to intensively prepare. Being the last continent without widespread outbreaks has given African countries the opportunity to see and asses how bad those outbreaks can get, and to plan accordingly since there are already laudable examples to be mimicked. Many countries in the continent shut their borders when they hadn’t yet gotten or they still had only a handful of cases. They might not have done so if the hadn’t seen typical examples such as Italy and Iran suffering to contain the pandemic.

Also, when community transmission begins, it may move more slowly as compared to other parts of the world since most Africans live in cities, but the but the intercity connection and the traffic between those cities is less than in other parts of the world. For instance, it can be clearly said that most of the cities in the African counties have no domestic airline or railway, or even a domestic bus network. People move around much less, almost as if they were practicing social isolation like it has been precautioned as one of the preventive measures of the COVID- 19. Most of all, Africa will enjoy the advantage of youth. COVID-19 kills mostly the old and people with premedical conditions, and Africa is endowed with a relatively tremendous younger population, with a median age of 18.9. (The median age in Europe is 43.1 years and that of the United States and China is 38.) This implies, in effect, about half of Africans who get COVID-19 will have a low risk of death. In an aged population such as Italy and Japan’s, 2 percent or more of those infected might be expected to die. In Africa, only 0.3 percent would die.

So, what now? Can the 54 African countries not yet hugely affected relatively to the countries in other parts of the world relax? Can those with the fewest international links on the continent reduce their precautionary measures and preparation efforts? The answer to that is they absolutely must not relax.The chart of the worldometers suggests that now, once many countries on the continent nowadays are hundreds and tens cases, the virus may spread within and across borders. As at 13 April, 2020, South Africa and Egypt recorded more than 2000 confirmed cases of the virus, significant portion of these cases not “imported” from elsewhere.

In conclusion, whether you from Africa or elsewhere in the world I would say; STAY HOME, STAY HEALTHY, FOLLOW THE PRECAUTIONS and SAVE LIVES.

ABOUBACAR SİSSOKO

STUDENT AT POLİTİCAL SCİENCE AND İNTERNATİONAL RELATİONS