The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that coronavirus could kill an estimate of 190,000 people in Africain within its first year of pandemic and the disease could smolder across the continent for years.
As many as 44 million of the continent’s 1.3 billion people could be infected during the same period, the U.N. health agency estimated, based on its prediction model of 47 African countries. More than 52,000 confirmed infections and 2,074 virus-related deaths have been reported by African countries, according to figures released Friday by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total number of cases has risen by more than 42% in the past week.
The disease appears to be spreading more slowly across Africa than in Europe, according to the WHO report.
“While COVID-19 likely won’t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world, it likely will smolder in transmission hotspots,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa who is based in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. She said outbreaks would likely peak about one month after the virus starts spreading widely in communities.
“COVID-19 could become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region. We need to test, trace, isolate and treat,” Dr Moeti said in a video call.
The continent which has most of its population under 20 years old, may be experiencing a slower rate of transmission, less severe cases and less deaths from a virus known to affect the elderly at a much deadlier rate.
But Africa could see a more prolonged outbreak that lasts a few years, according to the study. Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon as well as several smaller African countries are at high risk if containment measures are not prioritized, it said.
