Alarm over Africa Covid-19 fatalities
George Kebaso and Agencies
The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday raised alarm over the sharp increase in Covid-19 fatalities across the African continent.
The global health body warned that the weekly Covid infection rates have jumped to 95,000, or 44 percent while fatalities rose 20 percent to 1,400 over the previous week across Africa.
WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the new cases decreased in every other region across the globe, even in India, which is currently battling the worst outbreak in the world.
“The global drop in infection rates masks a worrying increase in cases and deaths in many countries,” Ghebreyesus said in a virtual international press conference as Uganda, the country’s immediate neighbour, announced a countrywide lockdown.
Access to vaccines
The steep increase in Africa, Ghebreyesus said, is especially concerning because it is the region with the least access to vaccines, diagnostics and oxygen.
On Sunday, the Centre for Disease Control in Africa put the combined fatalities for the 55 African Union members at 137, 350 due to the Covid-19 and 5,190,181 total positive cases.
Southern Africa region is leading with 67,878 deaths followed by Northern Africa with 46,481 fatalities, Eastern Africa is third in the number of Covid deaths at 13,682 and Western Africa is the least affected at 6,365 fatalities.
The African continent currently has the lowest share of vaccines in the world, with WHO already warned that about 90 percent of African countries will miss a September target to vaccinate at least 10 percent of their populations against Covid-19 as a third wave of the pandemic sweeping through some countries.
“With vaccine stocks and shipments drying up, the continent’s vaccination coverage for the first dose remains stuck at 2 percent and at about 1 percent in sub-Saharan Africa,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa said recently as media reports yesterday showed that Zimbabwe was finding it increasingly difficult to access Covid-19 vaccines.
Already the country is recording a huge jump in the number of new infections and fears of a third wave of the pandemic.
The southern African country started a mass vaccination programme in February with a target to vaccinate 60 percent of her nearly 16 million people by the end of this year.
But not as bad as South Africa which on Sunday recorded 1,810,164 confirmed positive cases and 58,590 deaths so far, but also with 1,640,849 recoveries.
The beginning of winter has increased the risk of infection in South Africa, where the number of cases has doubled in a short time, according to the WHO. On June 15, the country’s Health Ministry reported more than 8,400 new cases.
South Africa is set to host a “technology transfer hub” for coronavirus vaccines to scale up production know-how in Africa’s worst-hit nation, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday.
Ramaphosa said French President Emmanuel Macron and WHO chief Ghebreyesus would join him at a media briefing to announce the initiative at 1500 GMT.
