Overstretched health systems cause concern about the continent’s capacity to respond
A passenger wears a mask at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia, January 1 2020. Picture: LUKE DRAY/GETTY IMAGES
The World Health Organisation on Thursday last week declared a global emergency as coronavirus infections spread, after initially downplaying the threat. “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The Ebola virus raged through Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in 2014-2016, killing about 11,300 people. Coronavirus has killed more than 200 people in China, where it emerged in the central city of Wuhan, and has infected thousands more.At Senegal’s Blaise Diagne International Airport, health officials peer into a small thermal camera before the passport check.
Elsewhere, governments have enacted travel bans or urged people to remain indoors, adding to a sense of alarm.Fears of an outbreak were rife in Nigeria last week, when authorities shut a Chinese supermarket in the capital, Abuja. But they did so to remove expired products.
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