There is widespread anecdotal evidence that many African countries are massively under-reporting their COVID-19 caseloads, primarily because not enough tests are being performed. The threat is that this is giving citizens a false sense of complacency.
According to the latest report from Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the countries with the highest caseloads on the continent are South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Ethiopia, with Libya and Kenya not far behind. Nigeria, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are also reporting rising infections.
Since late October, the Africa CDC has been warning the continent to prepare for this scenario. And In the light of the new, potentially more infectious variant identified in South Africa, the CDC urged African countries “not to relent in their efforts to step up testing, contact tracing and early treatment of cases”.
In February, the World Health Organization said it planned to start dispatching around 90 million COVID-19 vaccines to Africa. But two countries, Tanzania and Burundi, were excluded from the program.
While Tanzania has been reluctant to accept vaccines, Burundi said it was focusing on prevention measures and did not see the need yet to vaccinate its nearly 12 million citizens, according to local media.
Tanzania's refusal to provide COVID-19 data and procure vaccines could endanger the whole continent, according to Africa CDC.
"We don't truly understand how [the] COVID-19 pandemic will evolve. Not cooperating will make it dangerous. This virus has no borders," Africa CDC director, John Nkengasong, said during an online media briefing.
Cape Verde, Rwanda, South, and Tunisia have been allocated around 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the WHO said in a statement.
The Africa CDC said 60% of Africans need to receive a form of vaccination for the continent to acquire herd immunity — that is when enough people become immune to a virus making it less likely to be transmitted within the community.
Currently more than 3.5 million people in Africa have contracted the virus and around 90,000 have died from it.
