Geneva, Switzerland
The World Health Organization
(WHO) on Thursday said that between 83,000 to 190,000 people in Africa could
die of COVID-19 while an additional 29 to 44 million are likely to contract the
disease if containment measures fail to work.
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| A health worker disinfects a home at Kawangware slums in Nairobi, capital of Kenya |
A new
study conducted by WHO regional office for Africa shed light on the likely COVID-19
fatalities in the continent during the first year of the pandemic based on
prediction modelling that factored demographics, social and environmental
factors as well as existing disease burden.
“While
COVID-19 likely won’t spread exponentially in Africa as it has done elsewhere
in the world, it likely will smoulder transmission hotspots,” said Matshidiso
Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa.
“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,” she added.
The WHO
study revealed that a lower rate of COVID-19 transmission in Africa points to a
likelihood of a prolonged outbreak while small countries in the continent
alongside hotspots like South Africa, Algeria and Cameroon were at a higher
risk if they failed to invest in robust containment measures.
The study
proposed upgrading of primary healthcare infrastructure across Africa to
enhance its capacity to cope with emergency care for COVID-19 patients.
Moeti
said that robust mitigation measures are key to averting widespread
transmission of the disease that could overwhelm already fragile health systems
in Africa. - Africa
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