Coronavirus begins to spread in Africa
The global pandemic spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), after involving China, Europe and the United States, has also begun to interest the African continent. From February 24, when the first official case was recorded in Nigeria, the number of infected people in sub-Saharan Africa has grown to over 300 units (2 deaths). Peaks have been recorded in Senegal and South Africa. According to the evidence collected, the virus arrived in the continent through flights from Europe and not from Asia, in contrast with the initial hypothesis. This news had a non-secondary impact on the civil society and the African ruling classes. Ironically, in the past months they pointed an accusing finger at some exponents of the European and US anti-immigration front, who used the fear of diseases brought by migrants to limit migratory flows from Africa to Europe.
Despite there are still only few cases, the African ruling classes are not underrating the potential risks associated with the hypothetical massive spread of the infection: they are carefully observing what is happening in the rest of the world and they are taking containment measures like in the most affected countries (China and Italy above all), but they are also exploiting the autochthonous experience in the fight against epidemics. The combination of these two elements brought to the so-called Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a UN convention signed in 2015 to improve the management skills and resolution capacities of crises related to natural disasters and epidemics.
In any case, African countries adopted many different measures to contain the virus: biometric checks to airports, the lockdown of aggregation places (stations, public offices, and schools), limitation or closure of air traffic from Europe and the imposition of quarantine for individuals coming from or having been in contact with people from areas at risk. In some cases, as in South Africa, President Ramaphosa already imposed a state of emergency and the consequent limitation for the opening of offices and places with a high human density. At the same time, the collaboration between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union (UA) brought to the launch of the African Task Force for Coronavirus (AFTCOR): a platform aimed at coordinating the containment activities of the virus, sharing the stocks of health material and implementing a coherent communication plan. Due to the fragility of many African health systems, the WHO underlined that the priority is to promptly identify cases of COVID-19. As such, the WHO established specialized laboratories to analyze the Coronavirus tests in 47 countries across the continent.
Although the scientific knowledge of COVID-19 is limited, based on what has been observed in the Chinese, Italian, Iranian and South Korean outbreaks, it is possible to analyze the risks and resilience factors that characterize the African continent. Risk factors include: the lack of health structures; the poor capacities of the health systems; the difficulties of adequate dissemination of news and good social practices to prevent contagion; the presence of large areas of crisis (regions at war, or already hit by other waves of diseases, or that host refugee camps or face environmental emergencies); and the possible delay in the international support necessary to face the emergency. In fact, with the staffs and health structures of Western countries and China already under pressure for domestic needs, it seems complicated to imagine an international commitment in Africa.
The WHO has repeatedly reiterated, that to stop the contagion it is important to frequently wash hand and to respect the safety distances among people. In this regard, the lack of access to clean water and the large concentration of people in the slums of the largest African cities risk hindering these virtuous practices. For example, in the slums of Addis Ababa, the per capita consumption of clean water is about 40 cubic meters per year (in Italy it is four times higher). Such poor access to clean water could be a serious problem as it could significantly increase the diffusion rate of COVID-19.
Another vulnerability factor, and probably the most relevant one, is the fragility of the health system of many African countries and the inadequacy of the infrastructures. Hospitals are often overcrowded and face a shortage of efficient staff and medical equipment. Furthermore, in contexts such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the health system is already dealing with other epidemics that have higher spread and mortality rates than the new Coronavirus, such as measles. In a scenario of widespread propagation of COVID-19, hospitals and the health systems of African countries could quickly collapse due to the pressure that the virus is able to exert on these systems. In addition, despite the efforts of the WHO, from a medical health point of view, Africa shows a serious deficiency in the number of tests available for verifying the presence of the infection: around 50,000 across the continent.
On the other hand, given that the virus seriously affects highly industrialized and polluted geographical areas, and mostly the elder population, Africa could be a more resilient context due to its low rate of industrial development, its lower general pollution and the “freshness” of its demographic pyramid. Furthermore, it is not to be underestimated that African countries have a considerable wealth of experience in the fight against epidemics.
As for the demographic resilience factor, according to the data emerged from scientific researches, COVID-19 spreads more in areas where the population has an average age of over 35 years (China 38, Italy over 45 years). With this in mind, it is important to underline that Africa is the youngest continent in the world, with 60% of the population with an average age of less than 25 years, in some cases less than 18 years, as in the case of Nigeria, the most populated African country (over 200 million inhabitants). According to the WHO, compared to other regions, a late finding of the presence of COVID-19 in Africa may have been partially influenced by the continent’s low average age. However, this positive data could hide a dark side, namely that the virus manifests itself asymptomatically in young people, and consequently it is harder to detect.
The second factor, that potentially increases African response capabilities, is the experience gained in the fight against other types of infectious diseases such as Ebola, measles, cholera, malaria, HIV or other forms of flu. Even before COVID-19, 74% of African countries had a plan to deal with pandemic flu. For example, the DRC, Sierra Leone and Liberia (2014-16) equipped their health infrastructures with isolation structures, which are still active and essential for slowing the spread of infectious diseases, in order to fight against the Ebola epidemic. Moreover, the prolonged coexistence with numerous infectious diseases has probably strengthened the social, cultural and psychological superstructures necessary to be able to live with a pandemic.
Finally, the new Coronavirus quickly spreading across Europe was favoured by the presence of a good transport network and a high rate of mobility in short timeframes. On the contrary, Africa presents serious deficiencies from an infrastructural point of view. In fact, in 2015 only 25% of the continent’s roads were asphalted, today 60% of the population does not have access to a modern infrastructure network and improving it would require $150 billion in annual investments. Therefore, such profound infrastructural criticalities could delay the spread of the virus on the continent. However, the scarcity of roads or railway services does not correspond to the absence of mobility tout court, but less rapid mobility. Africa is the first continent in the world by internal migration rate and three-quarters of African migrants, about 19 million people, do not leave the continent and move along the intra-regional route.
Overall, today it seems very complicated to predict the potential diffusion of COVID -19 in Africa and its impact on health systems, society and politics. Although some African countries could benefit from the wealth of experience in the management of pandemics and can apply some containment protocols experimented in Europe and Asia, it cannot be denied that in Africa there are all the potential factors for the outbreak of a large-scale health and humanitarian emergency. The poor situation of health services, the overcrowding of megacities, the difficulties of monitoring the population and the widespread underdevelopment are all elements that could facilitate the spread of the virus in a scale even higher than those observed so far in the world, with unimaginable human and political costs.
To date, the only quantifiable impact of Coronavirus on Africa is the economic one. It is mainly linked to the contraction of the commodity market (hydrocarbons and minerals), that is a direct consequence of the Chinese recession. In fact, with approximately $200 billion of trade exchange, China is the first trading partner of African. The exchanges between Africa and Beijing mainly interest the hydrocarbons and rare earth, of which China is the main importer in the world. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese market has experienced a contraction of about a third of its volume, significantly reducing the amount of raw materials importation from Africa. Such a contraction of the markets, combined with rising inflation and the interruption of Chinese financial flows could aggravate the already difficult economic conditions of some countries. In a pandemic scenario, they would have reduced ability to divert funds to the health sector. Furthermore, the economic and social uncertainties, related to the possible spread of COVID-19, could favour protectionist choices and the closing of the borders, which would undermine the virtuous economic integration processes started with the African Continental Free Trade Area, the agreement signed in 2019.
