WHO Official Says Africa Yet To Experience COVID-19 Peak Amid Pre-Existing Epidemics, War

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th May, 2020) The coronavirus pandemic has not yet reached its apex in Africa as pre-existing public health threats as well as hampered testing capacity risk worsening the current epidemiological situation, WHO Africa Program Manager for Emergency Response Dr. Michel Yao told Sputnik in an interview.

The African continent at this point accounts for roughly 1.5 percent of the global toll of coronavirus cases. According to Yao, the figure continues to grow, albeit driven by only a handful of countries, including South Africa and countries in the continent's north, as well as Nigeria and Ghana in the west, and Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the center.

"These countries count for most of the cases. In South Africa we still have an increase, but none of them is showing yet that they have reached a peak. Even though in countries like Burkina Faso you can see some decrease, we have to ensure that all the people who caught the virus, even being asymptomatic, can also be captured. So the issue of having huge testing is also still there. So overall it's increasing," Yao said.

In countries which initially reported no or few cases, such as the Central African Republic and Mauritania, the figures are now on the rise and will get all the more dangerous if the infection succeeds in breaking into rural areas with poorer health care, according to the WHO Africa program manager for emergency response.

"We should be careful because we still have the outbreak in the capital cities, but not yet � in most of the cases � out of these capital cities. What will happen when it moves to the places where it is difficult to implement the [confinement] measures, difficult to have access to the [health care] system? So we should remain cautious to celebrate," Yao said.

The WHO official pointed to other complications that might cause the further spread of the infection in Africa, such as many countries in the continent's south entering the influenza season and also countries affected by war. In the latter case, the expert brought up the Ebola outbreak to explain how humanitarian providers are faced with access difficulties and public mistrust.

"We can recall the Ebola, which is still ongoing, where the critical challenge was access related to security and also mistrust: when communities are killed by armed groups, they are scared and they have mistrust to anyone coming for any intervention," Yao said.

Carrying out comprehensive preventive measures in such environments is hard, it was argued, and countries at especially high risk of such obstacles include Congo, South Sudan, Nigeria and part of the Sahel region.

According to the latest WHO situation report, Africa cumulatively accounts for a little more than 77,000 cases of more than 5.2 million cases detected totally.