Countries in Africa just like the rest of the world has been affected by the Corona virus pandemic also known as Covid-19. South Africa one of the African countries decided to close down its borders and it its residents under lockdown before announcing its first death. South Africa currently has a record of 1,462 cases and 5 recorded deaths.
Other African countries like Zimbabwe and Lesotho have equally announced lockdowns while Kenya enforces curfew. Aid workers who usually help can no longer travel to the front lines because of border closure. Burkina Faso another landlocked country in Africa is in vital aid ahead of the summer. Summer is about the time when malnutrition and malaria is really high. $2 billion was launched by the United Nation for a humanitarian response focused on pooper countries.
World’s vision shipment left Accra, Ghana and was due to arrive on March 18 but got stranded in Lagos, Nigeria. Ghana has recorded jumbo recoveries concerning the pandemic. In South Africa wealthier individuals opt for private hospitals while poorer individuals rely on state services, for those who are not able to afford private healthcare the National health laboratory will be able to process 36,000 tests in 24 hours. Together African leaders have been holding meetings to put heads together on how to arrest the pandemic whose statistics, cases, recoveries and death has grown in the past weeks. In one of the meetings they discussed how to materialize commitments swiftly. African leaders that participated include Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Senegal’s Mackey Sall, Egypt’s Abdel Fatteh Al-sisi and Ethopia’s prime minister. South Africa’s health minister had announced that the country was going to seek aid from Cuba and China.
A measles outbreak has already infected over 5,000 people and threatens to go unchecked because the vaccines are usually brought in on Air France which has been disrupted due to the lockdown. In Burkina Faso medical charity Alima was planning to open an emergency operating theater but this project has been delayed because the country’s border were closed before and anesthetist and surgeon could fly in. In sub-Saharan Africa Corona virus has infected about 3,000 people forcing some of the poorly countries to shut it borders. In South Africa lockdown has received criticism as agents were assaulting citizens. Western Cape and Guateng provinces in South Africa are the most impacted with 310 and 548 cases respectively.
Across Africa cases continue to rise. Uganda has recorded 33 cases, Kenya has 42, Eritrea has 12 cases. In Kenya out of the 42 cases they are 18 females and 24 males. The lockdown has been particularly hard for some countries as they lack proper aid. Restaurants and stores are closed down, soldiers are on patrol to make sure everyone complies to the government’s directive.
