Nearly half the people participating in a survey across African states said that they, or someone in their household, had experienced “delayed or skipped access” to healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic, and seven out of 10 said they had difficulties accessing food.
“Less than 33% expressed support for measures that limited economic activity, that is, staying at home and limiting market visits,” said Africa CDC director, Dr John Nkengasong, during his weekly briefing on coronavirus on Thursday.
The Partnership for Evidence-based Response to COVID-19, a consortium of global public health organisations and private-sector companies, conducted the national representation phone surveys “to determine the acceptability, impact and effectiveness of public health and social measures in the communities”.
“Support for public health measures remain high, with about half supporting restrictions on public gatherings, which is very good news,” Nkengasong said, of the initial evidence-based findings, released by PERC.
Nkengasong reported that Covid-19 infections in Africa continued to drop over the past week, in line with a steady decline over the past few weeks.
“Fifty thousand new cases have been reported, which is a 6.9% decrease in number of new cases being reported when compared to the previous week,” he said.
On average over the past four weeks there has been an overall 9% decrease in the number of new cases being reported each week for the continent.
On average over the past four weeks there has been an overall 9% decrease in the number of new cases being reported each week for the continent.
But the central region has shown a significant increase on average in new cases, which are also increasing in the northern region. The breakdown by region over the past four weeks is:
- 49% increase in the central region;
- 13% decrease in the eastern region;
- 7% increase in the northern region;
- 17% decrease in the southern region;
- 18% decrease in the western region.
More than 33,000 people have died on the continent from Covid-19 and 1,272,986 cases have been reported by member states since the outbreak of the virus.
“The death of one person is devastating ... the death of close to one million people is more devastating,” said Nkengasong of the global toll. “Each of these numbers must truly matter.”
Eleven countries are “actively sharing data” of fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of 3.2%:
- Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (8.0%);
- Chad (7.4%);
- Sudan (6.2%);
- Liberia (6.2%);
- Niger (5.8%);
- Egypt (5.6%);
- Mali (4.3%);
- Angola (3.9%);
- Sierra Leone (3.4%);
- Algeria (3.4%).
“As a continent we have conducted 13 million tests from all member states,” said Nkengasong.
“When we launched PACT [Partnership to Accelerate Covid-19 Testing in Africa] our initial target was 10 million. We have exceeded that target and extended it to 20 million by November.
“In the coming weeks we will be supporting the continent with 3.2 million PCR-based tests,” he said, adding that 1.2 million of these tests were already being distributed to many countries.
The Africa CDC will be working with its partners to distribute another 2 million antigen tests – showing if people have antibodies from exposure to coronavirus.
The PCR-based molecular test often has a long turnaround, unlike the antigen test.
“With the antigen test we are able to test quickly and get results within 30 minutes or so, and we can do contact tracing. This is a very important development,” Nkengasong said of this technology, being extended across the continent.
“We call on our partners and donors to work collaboratively to scale up testing, which remains the most potent tool to bring this pandemic under control ... we are far from the light at end of tunnel but we are going in the right direction and must intensify public health measures.”
We can identify not only the mutations but where it was introduced.
The Africa CDC is supporting a large-scale vaccination perception study in 15 member states “to understand the attitudes, beliefs and practices across continent with respect to a possible vaccine for Covid-19”, he said.
Prof Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, also gave a presentation on Thursday about the importance of “genomic sequencing” in identifying the lineages of the virus circulating in Africa.
“There are about 24 mutations a year, that is two mutations every month,” he said of SARS-CoV2, which originated in China on November 19 2019.
“For example, in SA we have 34 different lineages of SARS-CoV2,” he said.
A is the main lineage which started in Asia and B is the lineage which started in Europe.
“Now that we have the genome of the virus we can identify not only the mutations but where it was introduced on the African continent,” said De Oliveira.
SA has created a network for genomic surveillance with national government funding, he said.
“In my lab we are showing over 500 introductions in the African continent ... most came from Europe, with some also from North and South America, and some from Asia.”
“We know the virus was introduced as early as January and then we can start seeing the genome not [only] from being introduced, but also transmitted within the continent.
“By the beginning of August more than 95% of infections on the African continent were locally transmitted. This is not surprising because we halted international traffic.
“It is very important as we open the border in SA on 1 October, we may see new introductions and we must avoid localised transmission.”
