The coronavirus epidemic is slowly descending to the south, gradually reaching all of Africa. Now only 5 of 54 states are free, and again, these data are questionable. In the small archipelago of Sao Tome and Principe, the government recognizes that it has no testing capacity, while the Comoros expects to be affected very soon. Africa will be completely hit and the virus is now spreading very quickly, said the World Health Organization (WHO). Even if the cases remain relatively few officially - 5,287 on March 31 for 172 dead - the director of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, call on the African states to react " strongly " and quickly.
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As the Mo Ibrahim Foundation points out, in a report published on March 30, Africa “ is the weakest capacity ” to respond, and “ if the virus spreads, the damage will be substantial on citizens and on the economy " Signs of optimism are rare. The issue of heat, which could be a barrier to the development of Covid, has never been demonstrated. Demographics could certainly be an advantage. Africa is a very young continent. The median age is less than 20 years and those over 65, who represent the majority of severe cases, account for less than 3%. But this good data is offset by aggravating factors, in particular the strong presence of pulmonary diseases, like tuberculosis or endemic diseases, starting with malaria, which weaken the organism.
Above all, the possibility of following the Asian or European model to stem the epidemic is unrealistic. Containment, applied in a large part of the globe, is a challenge for African megalopolises. In the slums, overcrowding as well as poverty are extreme. The president of Benin, Patrice Talon, recognized it, Monday, without bluntness. " How can we, in such a context where most of our fellow citizens donate food with the income from the previous day, decree without notice, a long-term general confinement? "He wondered, evoking the risk of" starving everyone ". Less direct, many presidents have reached identical conclusions, and have therefore opted for intermediate solutions in order to limit traffic in cities: closure of airports, places of worship and bars, curfew, roadblocks ... but not complete containment. The Congolese who had to apply it four days a week, starting on Friday, in the immense Kinshasa, nearly 12 million inhabitants, more than half of whom are in great poverty, have finally declined. The risk of riots was too great. South Africa, with its superior sanitary capacity, risked it, but not without difficulty. Nigeria also announced a total cessation of activities for the 21 million residents of the sprawling Lagos.
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To avoid the worst, Africa needs a " single answer ", analyzes John Nkengasong, the director of Centers for Disease Control (DCD) Africa, a structure of the African Union. But, for the moment, for lack of technical and financial means, nothing progresses. " Africa must be made an absolute priority of the international community with massive investment ," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday in a report. Experts believe that a mobilization is needed to help the finances of the weakest countries, at the risk of experiencing " millions and millions of contaminations ". The UN estimates that $ 3 trillion will be needed, both to fight the epidemic and to support the economies of developing countries. We also need a moratorium on African debt and a clear increase in the capacity of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Faced with such needs, international mobilization is far from the target for the moment. For Antonio Guterres, however, we must be in a hurry: “The more patients there are, the greater the risk of mutation of the virus. From then on, all investments made on a vaccine will be lost and the disease will return from the South to the North. "