Hit by a contemporary surge of infections and with vaccine deliveries at a close to standstill, Africa just isn’t able to face a 3rd wave of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Thursday.
“Many African hospitals and clinics are nonetheless removed from prepared to deal with an enormous rise in critically-ill sufferers,” warned WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti.
“The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising,” she added in a digital briefing.
Africa has formally registered over 4.8 million instances and 130,000 deaths, based on the WHO, representing 2.9 p.c of worldwide instances and three.7 p.c of deaths.
According to a survey performed by the organisation in May, the important well being services and personnel required to handle critically unwell Covid-19 sufferers are grossly insufficient in lots of African international locations.
Of 23 international locations surveyed, most had lower than one intensive care unit mattress per 100,000 inhabitants and solely one-third had mechanical ventilators.
In comparability, international locations like Germany and the United States have greater than 25 beds per 100,000 folks.
“Treatment is the final line of defence towards this virus and we can’t let or not it’s breached,” Moeti stressed, calling for better equipment for hospital and medical staff.
In recent weeks, the continent has seen a rise in infections.
South Africa, officially the most affected country on the continent, has tightened health restrictions and now has more than 1.6 million cases and 56,439 deaths.
In Uganda, the number of cases has jumped 131 percent in one week with outbreaks in schools and an increase in cases among health workers.
The UN’s health agency on Thursday said it had detected a surge late last month in coronavirus cases in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Angola and Namibia are also seeing a resurgence.
Simultaneously, the continent is facing a shortage of vaccines and deliveries are almost at a standstill in Africa, according to WHO, which hopes for new deliveries in the coming months through the international Covax scheme, including a pledge of 80 million doses from the United States.
Only 2 percent of Africans to date have received at least one vaccine jab, while 24 percent of the world’s population is now vaccinated.
Six countries have not kicked off innoculation, four of which are in Africa: Tanzania, Burundi, Chad and Eritrea.
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