Coronavirus in Africa, the third wave

Of the 54 African countries, at least 40 have already tested positive for Covid-19; the highest incidences are located in Burkina Faso, Egypt and South Africa.

Interestingly, the Chinese are not the biggest spreaders of the virus on the African continent; most cases are linked to people who came from Europe.

It is not known how the virus will react at high temperatures, it is known that it is not fatal to young organisms, and we know that Africa is a continent with a relatively short-lived population; only 5% of the more than 1.3 billion Africans are over 65 years old.

To give you an idea, in Italy this figure is greater than 23%. However, there are millions of young people infected with the AIDS virus, especially in South Africa, and the health system was already severely compromised by outbreaks of Ebola, meningitis, malaria, and tuberculosis; and to make matters worse, many regions have dramatic cases of malnutrition.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 63% of the population – 258 million people – do not even have access to soap and clean water to wash their hands.

The continent, stunned, is trying to take precautions; Angola, South Africa, Senegal, Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt have already closed their borders to Europe, and tourists are being placed in quarantine.

Mauritania imposed a curfew and closed cafes and restaurants; Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, closed schools and imposed a limit on religious events; Egypt also emptied public spaces with large concentrations of people and closed all educational centers; South Africa created restrictions for bars and similar establishments.

Many countries are already starting to take temperature readings and have the equipment to carry out the tests, but the problem is that the initial symptoms of malaria, which kills 400.000 Africans a year, are very similar to those of the coronavirus, making diagnosis difficult.

The precarious health system is another aggravating factor; there is a lack of equipment, intensive care units, and doctors. 

To give you an idea, Italy, which is losing seven to one to the virus, has 41 doctors for every ten thousand inhabitants, while in Africa there are two doctors for every ten thousand people.

It is worth remembering that the Ebola epidemic, between 2014 and 2016 (which affected Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali...), brought the health system to its knees, leaving more than 11 dead on the continent and more than 28 infected.

A gigantic drama is unfolding; it remains to be seen if the world will behave.

When this image starts showing black faces and masks with flags of countries whose names many people don't even know, we'll know if anything has changed in the world because of this virus, or if human solidarity is truly something superficial.

We'll see if there really are people and non-people in this world.

The word of salvation.