Coronavirus: Africa in the midst of a Third Wave?

Back in May, I wrote about concerns that Africa could suffer the same COVID-19 fate at India was going through (at that time) in the near future. Fast forward a couple months and there are indicates that Africa is suffering through the start of a wave that is more significant that previous ones. BBC (Jul 2) reports:

New cases have been increasing for six weeks running and rose by an average of 25% week-on-week to almost 202,000 in the week ending on 27 June.

The figure is very close to the continent's previous record of 224,000 new cases a week during the second wave in January.

"The speed and scale of Africa's third wave is like nothing we've seen before. The rampant spread of more contagious variants pushes the threat to Africa up to a whole new level," says Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa.

The spread in cases is being driven by the delta variant (first discovered in India). The Associated Press (Jul 2) reports:

The delta variant, reported in 16 African countries, has become dominant in South Africa, which accounts for more than half of Africa’s new cases. It was detected in 97% of samples sequenced in Uganda and in 79% of samples sequenced in Congo, said the WHO.

Coronavirus: is there a possibility Africa will become the next India?

It is known that India is dealing with a serious second wave. This occurred even though the country took decisive action all the way back in March 2020 where videos of police beating people emerged. If India is seeing an explosion of cases, is it possible that Africa will see a similar wave soon? One argument made for why Africa hasn't seen a significant wave is that maybe they did see one, but due to having a population with an average age of just 19.7, perhaps the virus wasn't sending people to the hospital in any significant manner. We should note; however, that India's average age is 26.8. Yes, 7 years older, but still a very young population. Is a -- for most of the continent -- first wave about to occur on the continent?

One thing I did notice about cases in Africa is that per Worldometer, every country with over 200,000 (5 countries) has access to the open seas -- to be technical, Ethiopia doesn't have access to the open seas, but they do use Djibouti. Will the virus slowly spread inwards? Anyways, what is happening currently in India is causing concern in Africa.

Current Concerns

Guardian (May 1):

“What is happening in India cannot be ignored by our continent,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week. “We do not have enough healthcare workers, we do not have enough oxygen … We cannot and should not find ourselves in [India’s] scenario because of the very fragile nature of our health systems.”

. . . According to latest World Bank figures, there are almost four times more doctors per inhabitant in India than across Africa. 

Coronavirus: Spreading in Africa?

There have been warnings about the spread of COVID-19 in Africa since the start of this global pandemic. I wrote about it back in October and how the worst fears had yet to occurred. In that post, I wrote about concerns that COVID-19 cases could reach 10 million by October. As we can see in Worldometer, reported cases aren't even at 3 million yet. During much of the pandemic, it also looked like cases were largely isolated to the country of South Africa and various North African countries. Is COVID-19 now spreading throughout Africa?

Let's start by visiting Sorth Africa. The New York Times (Dec 26) reported about the country:

In South Africa, a crush of new cases that spread from Port Elizabeth is growing exponentially across the nation, with deaths mounting . . . Now, as they battle new outbreaks, doctors are convinced that deaths have also gone uncounted. Dr. John Black, the only infectious-disease specialist for adults in Port Elizabeth, said he and other physicians feared that many people were dying at home. Indeed, a government analysis showed that there had been more than twice as many excess deaths as could be explained by confirmed cases in South Africa. “We don’t know what the real number is,” he said.

Coronavirus: Africa and Vaccines

Per Worldometer, COVID-19 infections have surpassed 2 million in Africa. Various articles that I've read places the population of the African continent at between 1.2 and 1.3 billion. As a coronavirus comparison, India has a population of 1.4 billion and has 9.4 million infections. When it comes to deaths, India is closing in on 150,000 while Africa is just over 50,000. And when it comes to the United States, there simply is no comparison. In a prior blog post in October, I reported on 7 potential reasons for this lack of spread in the continent.

1. Age of the population.

2. Tuberculosis vaccine.

3. Exposure to previous coronaviruses.

4. Experience dealing with Ebola.

5. Lack of global travel.

6. Population spends more time outdoor than other parts of the globe.

7. Quick lockdowns.

For much of this time, the spread was more significant in countries such as South Africa, Morocco and Egypt. But it does look like Ethiopia and Kenya are having a spread of the virus. Kenya specifically looks like it is being hit with a second wave. Once again, the numbers being reported are very small when compared to other continents. For example, South Africa isn't even in the top 50 countries on a case per million basis.

The Associated Press via the New York Post (Nov 19) reports:

The African continent of 1.3 billion people is being warned against “prevention fatigue” as countries loosen pandemic restrictions to ease their economies’ suffering and more people travel.

“We cannot relent. If we relent, then all the sacrifices we put into efforts over the past 10 months will be wiped away,” Africa CDC director John Nkengasong told reporters. He expressed concern that “many countries are not enforcing public health measures, including masking, which is extremely important.”

. . . The African continent has conducted 20 million coronavirus tests since the pandemic began, but shortages mean the true number of infections is unknown.

[World Health Organization’s Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti] worried that in some of Africa’s low-income countries, much of the limited testing capacity has been used on people who want to travel abroad instead of controlling the virus at home.

Of these 20 million tests, Worldometer indicates that around 64% of these tests have occurred in South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt and Kenya. This list looks very similar to the list above in regards to countries with the most infections. These countries represent around 30% of the continent's population. 

Coronavirus: Is the Virus not Spreading in Africa?

I've discussed COVID-19 in Africa a number of times. My last blog post was in August. At the time, I mentioned that back in April the WHO predicted that there would be 10 million cases within 3 to 6 months. The 6 months would be around now. Africa does have north of 1 million cases, but it is far below 10 million. Now there are probably way more cases than are being reported. When looking at the larger African countries, you have to go all the way down to the 100 ranking range to see countries like Morocco and South Africa pop up with under 80,000 tests per million (per Worldometer). Countries such as Australia, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States are all in the 300,000+ tests per million. I could see the possibility that there are more like 6 million cases in Africa. But let's be honest, even if there are millions of cases in Africa, I'm not reading news articles about how the virus is causing significant problems for the continent.

Coronavirus: WHO warns of spread in Africa

I last wrote about coronavirus in Africa on April 19th. At the time, WHO issued a warning that there could be 10 million cases within 3 to 6 months. We are heading towards 4 months since that announcement and there are, per Worldometer, no where near 10 million cases. It would admittedly be hard to have 10 million confirmed cases when there have been fewer than 10 million tests conducted (once again, per Worldometer). 

ANOTHER WHO WARNING

The fact that there are fewer than 1 million confirmed cases hasn't prevented the WHO from issuing an additional warning. 

Coronavirus: Potential Deterioration of African/Chinese Relations

Back in August 2019, I wrote about China's growing ties with Africa. I took this quote from Forbes (May 4, 2019):

“As a South African, I've seen China's activities on the continent up close,” says Ted Bauman, Senior Research Analyst at Banyan Hill Publishing. “It's clear that China's primary goal with foreign investment is geopolitical, not economic. The most consequential investments are undertaken by state owned companies, not by Chinese private capital. They tend to focus on infrastructure like highways, ports and dams, and on public networks like the electrical grid.”

The trouble is that “these investments help to bind countries to China politically, and through debt obligations,” explains Bauman.

Coronavirus: Is Africa the next hot spot?

If anyone looks at Worldometers tracking or any other site's tracking of coronavirus, you know that you have to scroll far down the list before you come across an African country. The first countries you come across are South Africa and Egypt. On the face of things, you might think that Africa might be spared from this pandemic. Al Jazeera unfortunately reports that this just won't be the case -- based on currently modeling, of course:

Coronavirus cases in Africa could surge from just thousands now to 10 million within three to six months, according to provisional modelling, a regional World Health Organization (WHO) official said.

. . . Separately, new research said Africa could see 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus even under the best-case scenario, according to modeling by the Imperial College London.

Under the worst-case scenario with no interventions against the virus, Africa could see 3.3 million deaths and 1.2 billion infections, the report by the UN Economic Commission for Africa said.

Coronavirus: Africa Update

It took awhile for COVID-19 cases to pop up in Africa. The first case occurred in Egypt in mid-February. Since then, I think one can say that the virus is likely gaining steam in various North African countries as well as South Africa.

One could argue that not until mid-March did the virus start getting detected in other African countries. Quartz Africa had a March 13th article on this:

Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia all confirmed their first coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours as the global pandemic picks up pace around the world.

Coronavirus: Africa

I have a day job so I'm writing this on Sunday. This might be seriously dated or not by the time it posts on Tuesday. As of Sunday, there wasn't a single reported case of coronavirus in Africa. If that is still the case on Tuesday, then this won't be dated.

US News and World Report via Associated Press has an article up about the country of Zambia and how it is dealing with the threat of the coronavirus. Now I admit, I had to look up where Zambia is. Zambia is in Southern Africa. It is north of Zimbabwe and south of Congo. It has a population of 17 million.

The virus that has spread through much of China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live, as some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.

. . . But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and numerous illnesses that display symptoms similar to the flu-like virus.

. . . Those growing worried include employees at the Sino-Zambia Friendship Hospital in the mining city of Kitwe in northern Zambia, near the Congo border. Chinese companies operate mines on the outskirts of the city of more than half a million people. One company is headquartered in Wuhan, the city at the center of the virus outbreak. Hundreds of workers traveled between Zambia and China in recent weeks.

. . . But the employees and others familiar with the matter, some of whom spoke anonymously under the new rules, say some Chinese patients checked in with coughs and fevers but did not get placed in isolation. 

Coronavirus: Africa and Uyghurs

I'm writing this Sunday night after the Super Bowl so many things could change from now and when I actually post this. I've been thinking about how this could spread across the globe and my thoughts shifted to countries that might not have the best healthcare systems and also has connections with China.

As of Sunday, I don't believe there have been any reported cases in Africa. There have been suspected cases, but I believe all have turned out to be due to other illnesses.

Al Jazeera wrote about this on Saturday, February 1st:

Amid the mounting concerns, medical experts appear certain that the deadly virus will also infect people on the continent, pointing to the deepening trade and travel ties between China and Africa that has seen many countries on the continent become popular tourist, business and investment destinations for the Chinese.

"There is a large amount of travel between China and Africa; hubs such as Addis Ababa, Cairo and Nairobi are at particular risks due to the large amount of Chinese travellers that pass through these airports."

China in Africa

I recently wrote a blog post about China's involvement in Venezuela. China has also lent large amounts of money to African nations.

Forbes (May 4, 2019) has the following:

“As a South African, I've seen China's activities on the continent up close,” says Ted Bauman, Senior Research Analyst at Banyan Hill Publishing. “It's clear that China's primary goal with foreign investment is geopolitical, not economic. The most consequential investments are undertaken by state owned companies, not by Chinese private capital. They tend to focus on infrastructure like highways, ports and dams, and on public networks like the electrical grid.”

The trouble is that “these investments help to bind countries to China politically, and through debt obligations,” explains Bauman.