Africa faces uphill battle against coronavirus pandemic with fragile health systems.
A recent analysis by the WHO found there are less than 5,000 beds in intensive care units available for COVID-19 patients across 43 African nations, which is about five beds per one million people in the reported countries compared to 4,000 beds per one million people in Europe. There are also fewer than 2,000 functional ventilators in public health services across 41 African nations that reported to WHO.
Patsy Oosthuizen and Ingrid Hartmann pose for a photo with other student volunteers outside Tygerberg Hospital's coronavirus screening area in Cape Town, South Africa, on April 5, 2020.Each morning, dozens of people line up at the coronavirus screening tent outside Tygerberg Hospital to see whether they need to be tested. Oosthuizen and Hartmann said as many as 200 people have come through the tent during their shifts so far, and they each screened around 30 to 40 people.
A nurse gives a mask to a citizen before the COVID-19 testing in Johannesburg, South Africa, April 7, 2020. Algeria has, by far, the highest death toll from COVID-19 of any country in Africa, with more than 400 fatalities. So far, more than 3,000 people in the North African nation have been diagnosed with the disease, according to the latest data from the Africa CDC.
"Without these donations, I don't think we would have had enough protective gear," Benaferi told ABC News in a recent telephone conversation. A soldier hands out flyers about the novel coronavirus to a resident on the streets of Soweto, South Africa, April 23, 2020, as the country remains in lockdown for a fourth week in a bid to combat the spread of the coronavirus.Earlier this month, the World Bank published a report projecting the pandemic would drive sub-Saharan Africa toward its first recession in 25 years.
Measles vaccination campaigns in Chad, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Sudan have already been suspended due to COVID-19, leaving some 21 million children who would have otherwise been immunized now unprotected, according to the WHO. "We more frequently than not go to markets, and in the markets there is no possibility of regulating, especially with regards to social distancing," N'Guessan told ABC News in a recent telephone interview."It remains a risk, even for public transport."
"There is this fear, this feeling that exists," Aissatou Balde, the IRC's country director for Cote d'Ivoire, told ABC News in a recent telephone interview."The mistrust that we saw during Ebola should not be happening during this period, and we have been telling that to the government here." Officials are working to address the shortcomings and identify more COVID-19 treatment sites across Nigeria, which has reported just over 1,000 cases so far and at least 32 deaths. Lagos, for instance, has already set up a few field hospitals in preparation for the possibility of a surge in infections, according to Nwosisi.
"Clearly, the impact of this virus if it were to get into camps is going be devastating," Kate Moger, the International Rescue Committee’s regional vice president of the African Great Lakes, told ABC News in a recent telephone interview. Staff members of the Congolese Ministry of Health perform a COVID-19 test at a private residence in Goma, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on March 31, 2020.
MORE: Democratic Republic of the Congo discharges last Ebola patient after 14 days without confirmed cases
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