The lights are red. Africa, spared by the first wave of the coronavirus, is facing a second wave much stronger and deadly. The continent’s death rate, 2.5%, now exceeds the global average, 2.2%, according to the Africa CDC Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of cases on the mainland rose 14% per week in December.
South Africa is overwhelmed by the rapid spread of the virus variant. Its neighbors are also affected. The Maghreb is also facing a rise in cases. In West Africa, Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the number of cases has increased rapidly since December. “We are witnessing a turnaround, judge John Nkengasong, director of Africa CDC, at a press conference on January 21. “The increase in the death rate marks a break with the first wave, during which Africa remained below the world average,” he insists. He is extremely concerned, in particular by the circulation of the South African variant, and also admits, during an interview on France 24, that the number of cases reported on the continent is obviously underestimated.
On the continent, 21 countries have death rates above the global average of 2.2%. In Sudan, the virus kills 6.2% of those infected, and 5.5% in Egypt. In West Africa, Liberia has a case fatality rate of 4.4%, Mali 4.1%, Chad 3.6% and Niger 3.5% * (see list). The highest case fatality rate, 11.8%, is recorded in the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a member state of the African Union.
This excess mortality is caused by the acceleration in the number of patients who clog health systems on the continent, explains Africa CDC. Africa remains, according to figures, one of the least affected continents, with 3.5 million cases of Covid-19, or 3.5% of cases worldwide and almost 87,900 deaths, according to the organization to January 27.
South African variant
Identified in October by South African researchers, the 501Y.V2 strain of Covid-19 is spreading on the continent and around the world. Its propensity to spread more quickly worries and alerts health authorities around the world. Since then, other variants, English, Brazilian, bring their share of concerns.
In South Africa, the situation has deteriorated considerably since the discovery of this new, more contagious variant of the virus, which today represents more than two thirds of cases in the country. If it is not more deadly, its greater contagiousness contributes to overloading hospitals. At the end of January, the country deplored more than 40,000 deaths, almost half of the death cases linked to Covid-19 declared on the continent.
This variant has also been identified in six other African countries: Botswana, Comoros, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. It is probably present in a number of African countries, but little detected given the countries’ weak capacities to sequence the genomes of the virus. In France, two foci of people infected with this South African variant, after a religious trip to Mozambique last December, have been identified. Twenty countries around the world, in Asia, Europe, North America and Australia, have already reported it. Measures are being taken to prevent its dissemination in overseas territories, in Mayotte and Reunion, and in Guyana for the Brazilian variant, where border controls have been tightened.
In the third week of January, 173,556 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Africa, a 17% decrease in the number of new cases reported from the previous week. This decline is largely due to the recent drop in the number of new cases reported in South Africa. “Some member states have tightened restrictions on social measures, which has influenced the decrease in reported cases,” CDC Africa also notes.
Patient care
Now, in many countries, the dynamics of the epidemic “exceed the capacity of nurses and doctors to take care of patients,” said John Nkengasong. Supplies of equipment, including the needs for oxygen used to treat severe forms of Covid-19, are becoming “critical”.
Hospitals overwhelmed, we turn to the vaccine. A handful of countries are launching their vaccination campaign, on the basis of bilateral contracts (Morocco, Seychelles, Egypt and Guinea). In the coming weeks, 1.5 million vaccines are expected in South Africa. This order is part of negotiations between the government and the AstraZeneca-Oxford alliance. Shadow on the table, South Africa will pay 2.5 times more for its doses than the European Union. Taking advantage of the virtual summit in Davos, the South African president shared his anger: “The rich countries of the world monopolize these vaccines. We call on them to make available the excess doses ordered and hoarded, ”he said via a video message. The European Union is taking refuge behind the fact that it has for its part participated in the funding of research into this vaccine.
For its part, the African Union has ordered 270 million vaccines for the continent, in addition to those planned through the Covax device, an initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and private partners for equitable access to vaccines. This WHO device should make it possible to vaccinate 10% of the population of the African continent.
Vaccines are still missing
“It is not the vaccines alone that will help us put an end to this pandemic, it is the vaccination”, underlined the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The rapid and equitable distribution of vaccines is not only a moral imperative, it is also a health, strategic and economic security imperative,” he stressed.
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