Women in Africa are less likely to get Covid-19 and to die from it, a new World Health Organisation analysis based on cases from 28 countries finds.
But SA exceeded the norm: 57% of cases in SA were women, compared to the average of 41% women being infected, dropping to 31% in Niger, according to the WHO research.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, director of the WHO Africa region, said: “This comes despite women accounting for a large part of the health workforce which puts them at higher risk of infection. In Africa, more than 95,000 health workers have been infected with Covid-19.”
In the Seychelles, 71% of health worker infections are among women, followed by 64% in Eswatini, 55% in Ivory Coast and 54% in Senegal, according to the report.
Women were at slightly lower risk of death than men. For example, the fatality rate among in men in the DRC was 2.7% compared to 2.2% among women.
On Thursday at his weekly Covid-19 briefing Dr John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa CDC, raised concern that 21 countries still had a case fatality rate above the global average.
SA, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Malawi, Lesotho and Angola were the Southern Africa countries among the 21, with Zimbabwe having the region’s highest average fatality rate of 4%.
The Africa CDC director said: “This is troubling because our case fatality ratio continues to increase compared to the global case fatality ratio which stands at 2.2%.”
Nkengasong also flagged the possibility that East Africa could be facing a third wave of infections as the total number of Covid-19 cases heads towards four million.
“If you plot the graph in East Africa it would seem to suggest that we might well be seeing the start of a third wave there,” he said.
Despite the rising number of new cases in east and central Africa, overall new cases reported across the continent have decreased on average by 15% from February 1 to 28. By region the trends are:
- 14% increase in Central Africa
- 7% increase in East Africa
- 23% decrease in Southern Africa
- 16% decrease in Western Africa
- 11% decrease in Northern Africa
Nkengasong thanked Covax for delivering vaccines to a number of countries including Nigeria, the DRC, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Angola and Rwanda and, he said “this list is not exhaustive because as we speak an accelerated move to distribute the first doses is under way”.
“This week was a tipping point in what we have been expecting when many countries started receiving vaccines from the Covax facilities,” he said.
The Africa CDC is negotiating with SA to get the 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine that will not be used in the country’s vaccination programme because of its low efficacy against mild and moderate Covid-19 caused in the dominant variant.
Prof Salim Abdool Karim, head of the ministerial advisory committee (MAC) on Covid-19 in SA, presented the latest scientific knowledge on variants, saying they were being systematically monitored at key sites in SA, known as sentinel sites.
The Africa CDC goal is to have 50,000 genetic tests conducted to analyse variants by the end of the year.
Reflecting on the pandemic, Karim said: “The pandemic is a mosaic of country epidemics. Our continent has been less affected compared to North and South America or Europe or Asia. The far end of Southeast Asia matches much of what we have seen in Africa.
“We make a very small contribution to the global pandemic, and we have a minimal impact on the global pandemic numbers and the global pandemic trajectory.”
Covid-19 has compromised health delivery and a WHO preliminary analysis of 22 countries found that 10 countries were reporting a rise in maternal deaths.
But the lockdowns, school closures and economic stresses on the continent have been severe and, said Moeti, exacerbated the vulnerabilities of women and girls.
“The aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic on women and girls have been profound, leaving many grappling with heightened risks to their health and safety,” she said — echoing Nkengasong’s view that pandemic response must consider the risk to lives and livelihoods as well as to health.
More than 90% of the informal workers in Sub-Saharan Africa are women and these jobs “have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic”, said Moeti.
Covid-19 has compromised health delivery, and a WHO preliminary analysis of 22 countries found that 10 countries were reporting a rise in maternal deaths.
“The highest increases were reported in Comoros, Mali, Senegal and SA between February and July 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.
“Nine of the 22 countries reported a decline in births in health facilities and an increase in complications due to abortions,” noted the researchers, also reporting an increase in violence against women in Africa.
The continent is also battling outbreaks of Ebola in the DRC and Guinea, with a 64% increase in the number of cases this week compared to last week.
Twelve people, including two health care workers, have died out of the 28 people infected by Ebola by Thursday.
In the DRC, 856 people have been vaccinated and more than 600 contacts identified. In Guinea, about 500 contacts have been registered and 14,809 people have been vaccinated.
Vaccinations play a critical role in stopping diseases like Ebola and Covid-19, a point Nkengasong reiterated on Thursday.
“What we should be looking at as a continent, is what we are doing to get to 60% vaccinations against Covid-19. If we do not get to vaccinate at least 60% and above, I think it will become very challenging to manage this pandemic after 2022,” said the director of the Africa CDC.
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