Are we working to let COVID-19 predictions about Africa come to pass?

At a point, regions that are always known to have the muscle to combat pandemics were advised to come and learn something about how Africa was handling the COVID-19 pandemic. The contribution of cases and mortalities from the Africa region had remained low, but now, one fears if the new directives advanced by the global health communities will not cause a spike of cases in the region if swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

In an April 10 interview with CNN, American philanthropist Melinda Gates expressed her belief that the coronavirus pandemic will have the worst impact in the developing world. She said she foresees bodies lying around in the street of African countries (Aljazeera). Gates is not the only one to be predicting total doom in Africa. A report released by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) also in April stated: “Anywhere between 300,000 and 3.3 million African people could lose their lives as a direct result of COVID-19.”

As mentioned by the Aljazeera report, “based on the lowest projection from UNECA and at the growth rate at the time of the predictions, African nations needed to see at least 7.6 million confirmed infections to be able to reach 300,000 deaths; 84 million people will have to be infected continent-wide for the UNECA projected 3.3 million deaths to happen”.

In the conclusion of the said article, the writer commented that “African countries deserve to be perceived as autonomous, complex, and nuanced as every part of the world” and it is proper to add that they needed to thread on their own path and stick to what they had done well that was giving them the needed applause.

Unfortunately, one cannot tell if it is because Africa lacks the resilience to create their own world of success and cannot endure to the end?

In my view, dealing with a novel virus like SARS COV-2, one needs to stick and glue to measures that are working and only change upon conclusive evidence becomes available. This statement is being made taking cognizance of the demand for a strong financial foundation to be able to stick to the working measures.

Ghana, for example, is noted to have started well in the fight against COVID-19 and at a point was applauded by the WHO as the President of the Country in one of his state addresses to the nation mentioned. The country mounted an intense testing strategy with the aim of “going ahead of the virus”. But quite recently and on the downside, it has been said that Ghana is one of the countries driving the spike in cases on the continent as revealed by the WHO (myjoyonline.com). This could suggest that the country is losing the fight against the control of infection transmission.

One word that has been synonymous with the fight against COVID-19 is “confusion” and maybe “contradictions”. This is expected with anything that is novel and understudied. One, therefore, needs to be careful before leaping into control measures.

The global health community has also not been spared with confusion and contradictions. The confusion started with the role of facemask use and who has to use a facemask to control the transmission of SARS COV-2. Between the WHO and CDC, several conflicting positions were advanced however Ghana decided to adopt and implement the use of facemask in all public gatherings as part of the measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.  Medical Laboratory practice was not spared with similar contradictions when a guideline suggested that biosafety cabinet was not a necessity in conducting Tuberculosis testing with the GeneXpert knowing the risk of exposure of personnel to the virus in samples used for TB test. I personally disagree with that position in the fact that our medical laboratory set-ups are plagued with congestion and with the limited personal protective equipment, such guidelines would expose more personnel to the virus.

The recent confusion which is lingering on, is whether SARS COV-2 transmission could be air-borne? Scientists are prevailing on the WHO to change the guidance on the possible spread of coronavirus via air-borne routes.  “The World Health Organization on Tuesday (07/07/2020) acknowledged the “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus after a group of scientists urged the global body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people (read more). In a briefing, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on the COVID-19 pandemic at the WHO acknowledged and said “We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of COVID-19”.

With these uncertainties in measures prescribed by the global health community in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, left to me alone, we need to be sure of decisions we take based on the guidelines given. One such guideline is the “discharge and recovery” policies updated by the WHO recently. It is a known fact that people can have reinfection with the virus and those reinfections could kill. Also, those reinfected could potentially transmit their infections to others. Why then is the advise to stop a second test after the initial positive test of cases? Why is retesting not necessary to declare one as recovered? Richard Quest of CNN gives an account of his experience with COVID-19. It gives a good education for us to know that we do not know much about the novel virus and we need to stick to the measures we have known working and take time before jumping and adopting new guidelines.

I reiterate that we have to be careful of some of the measures given to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Are they not targeting African countries to make them vulnerable and to choose the easier way out to make all the predictions about Africa come to pass? We can salvage the situation if we are ready to institute and tailor our African measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic since the global health community has shown they do not know it all and can learn from us too.