COVID-19 cases may rise after Eid celebrations, WHO warns
… calls for preventive measures
By Hassan Zaggi
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, has warned that cases of COVID-19 may rise in the African continent after the Eid celebrations.
She, therefore, called for urgent preventive measures to halt the increase. Moeti gave the warning at an online media briefing on Thursday, insisted that the Africa’s third wave of the COVID-19 was on the rise.
“This small step forward offers hope and inspiration but must not mask the big picture for Africa. Many countries are still at peak risk and Africa’s third wave surged up faster and higher than ever before.
“The Eid celebrations which we marked this week may also result in a rise in cases. We must all double down on prevention measures to build on these fragile gains,” she noted.
Moeti, however, explained that the new case numbers in Africa fell by 1.7 per cent to nearly 282,000 in the week ending July 18 and that the continent experienced an unbroken nine-week surge, excluding data from South Africa, which accounted for 37 per cent of these cases.
“Around 60 million doses are set to arrive in the coming weeks from the United States of America, Team Europe, the United Kingdom, purchased doses, and other partners through the COVAX facility.
“Over half a billion doses are expected through COVAX alone this year,” Moeti said.
While calling for African countries to increase efforts to boost vaccine uptake in the continent, Moeti said: “To increase uptake, countries must scale up operations, investments on operational costs, and address vaccine confidence.
“Countries need sufficient vaccine sites and health care workers, sufficient vaccine storage, and adequate transport and logistics for distribution.”
She reiterated that if Africa must meet the September dateline of vaccinating 10 per cent of its most vulnerable population, “a massive influx of doses means that Africa must go all out and speed up the vaccine rollout by five to six times if we are to get all these doses into arms and fully vaccinate the most vulnerable 10 per cent of all Africans by the end of September.
“Nearly 70 per cent of African countries will not reach the 10 per cent vaccination target for all countries by the end of September at the current pace.
“Around 3.5 million to four million doses are administered weekly on the continent, but to meet the September target this must rise to 21 million doses at the very least each week.”
According to Moeti, only 20 million Africans, or 1.5 per cent of the continent’s population, had been fully vaccinated so far and that only 1.7 per cent of the 3.7 billion doses given globally had been administered in Africa.
