The list of African nations hit by the coronavirus continues to grow, with Namibia, Rwanda and Eswatini among those reporting their first cases.
South Africa’s number of confirmed cases rose by 14, for a total of 38, as the arrival of a military transporter evacuating 122 South Africans from the Chinese region of Wuhan was broadcast live on TV.
In Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, the health minister said the infected person is a 33-year-old who recently returned from a business trip to the United States.
In Namibia, the health minister announced at a press conference that a Spanish couple had tested positive.
RWANDA REGISTERS FIRST CASE
An Indian national from Mumbai is Rwanda’s first case, said Health Minister Daniel Ngamije.
Africa had for weeks been spared from the coronavirus, but the disease is now spreading across the continent: At least 21 nations have recorded cases.
Experts warn that health systems in many African countries are weak, meaning hospitals and clinics could easily be overwhelmed if there is a surge in infections.
According to the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the economies of numerous countries on the continent could be badly hit in the event of a crisis. “Africa may lose half of its (gross domestic product), with growth, falling from 3.2% to about 2% due to a number of reasons which include the disruption of global supply chains,” said economist Vera Songwe at an ECA meeting in Ethiopia.
Songwe said the continent’s ties to affected economies in the European Union, China and the United States was causing ripple effects.
Senegal’s President Macky Sall yesterday ordered all schools and universities closed for the next three weeks and religious festivals cancelled in response to a coronavirus outbreak that has infected 24 people in the past two weeks.
Senegal is the first sub-Saharan African country to close its schools, according to a list compiled by UN cultural agency Unesco.
As of Friday, 39 countries had closed schools nationwide, affecting over 420mn children and youths, Unesco said.
Since Thursday, 17 contacts of a man who returned from Italy to the city of Touba, which was scheduled to host a religious festival later this month, have tested positive. The man’s two-year-old baby was one of three new confirmed cases yesterday, the health ministry said.
“With the appearance of a hotbed of community transmission in Touba, I instructed the government (to adopt) a contingency plan to prevent the propagation of the epidemic,” Sall said after a meeting with his advisers. He added that the army would help build mobile hospitals.
The first coronavirus case has also been identified in Equatorial Guinea, the central African country’s health minister said, after a woman who had been in Spain tested positive for the disease. “Tests have confirmed the diagnosis of the Covid-19 coronavirus disease, minister Salomon Nguema Owono told reporters in the capital Malabo.
The patient is a 42-year-old woman who had returned a week ago from Madrid, which has become a hotspot for the virus.
CONFUSION IN CONGO
When Congo announced its first coronavirus case, all the details from the health ministry about the patient were wrong, drawing a rebuke from the president and highlighting the challenges the huge African country will face if the virus spreads.
Concerns about Africa’s ability to cope with an outbreak which has spread across on the continent are magnified in a country like Democratic Republic of Congo, where a creaking health system, a deficit of trust in public institutions, decades of poor governance, corruption and conflict can offer fertile ground for rumour and speculation.
A health ministry spokeswoman initially told reporters on Tuesday that the patient was Belgian, had been detected at the airport and was in quarantine in Kinshasa’s Kinkole suburb. The patient was, in fact, a Congolese citizen returning from France, had contacted the health services two days after his arrival in Congo and was quarantined in the N’djili neighbourhood, the ministry later said.
Mauritania also confirmed its first case of novel coronavirus, the country’s health minister said on Friday, adding to the growing number of cases in West Africa. In a televised statement, Health Minister Mohamed Nedhirou Ould Hamed said the case involved a foreigner who tested positive on Friday.
Health workers wearing protective gear disinfect the minibus of the first Kenyan patient of the Covid-19 in Ongata Rongai, neighbouring town of Nairobi, yesterday.
