Thought of the Day - September 24 - Shout Out for Africa

While western countries continue to be surprised and struggle with the dramatic loss of life due to COVID (the US for example now exceeds 200,000 fatalities), the dire predictions for the continent of Africa have not really been witnessed. The director of the Africa CDC&P, Nkengasong, admits that antibody testing is showing cases are far above the 1.4 million reported, but most cases are proving to be asymptomatic. Even if the official deaths count of 34,000 is under-reporting by a factor of three or four this is still a small number for a continent of 1.3 billion.

Some of the key drivers for this are obvious:

• Africa's youthful population - the average age is 18 rather than 43 for Europe or 39 in North America;

• The ravages of other diseases also mean a lower number of people surviving and living with known co-morbidities, those which lead to complications when mixed with COVID-19;

• Quick lock-downs and clear messages on things like the use of masks have been enacted.

However, there are other factors. Like cooperation in the establishment of effective supply chains. This means while African nations have far less to spend on tackling the pandemic they are still getting essential supplies. For example, when the pandemic hit, only two African countries could test for Coronavirus, now all can. The next challenge may prove to be access to a vaccine. Here African countries held a conference focusing on equitable access, explore on-shore manufacturing and facilitate late-stage clinical trials.

There are also suggestions that over-crowded neighbourhoods, which were expected to be a driver for fatalities, may actually convey a greater predisposition for immunity due to previous exposure to other Coronaviruses (Thought of the Day - September 1 - The XYZ Hypothesis).

There is even the suggestion that parasitic infections may also help as they detune the auto-immune system thus no overreaction to COVID-19.

To be fair the real issue for Africa from COVID-19 may prove not to be homegrown, it will probably be the knock-on effect from the pandemic's effect elsewhere.

Cheers

Cliff