African leaders defend WHO director against Trump

African leaders, including the Presidents of the African Union and Rwanda, have defended the Director-General of the World Health Organization, the Ethiopian Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, after being targeted by President Donald Trump and has threatened to withdraw his country's contribution to the WHO budget. This Thursday, the World Bank has published a pessimistic investigation forecasting that, for the first time in 25 years, sub-Saharan Africa will go into recession this 2020 due to the economic impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. The worst forecasts say that growth will contract to -5.1% of the region's GDP. Aid such as that announced by the EU yesterday will not be enough: more than 20 billion euros that will go to vulnerable countries, including many Africans. This Thursday South Africa celebrates two weeks of the three of confinement that your Government has imposed and already reaches almost 2,000 infected. In neighboring Botswana, the entire parliament has been quarantined after it was discovered that a health worker who was present at Wednesday's session had tested positive for Covid-19. According to the most recent data, updated at 19:30 (Spanish time), Africa has exceeded 11,500 infected, specifically totaling 11,577 in 53 countries, counting Western Sahara. South Africa continues to lead with 1,845 cases, followed by Algeria (1,572), Egypt (1,560), Morocco (1,346) and Cameroon (730). The number of deaths on the continent amounts to 576.

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There are many ways of looking at the epidemic and one of them is as an opportunity to make investments, for example in water and sanitation, as we have today in this article, or also to learn from those who know best about facing epidemics: Africans. The restrictions imposed to contain the epidemic complicate access to food for millions of people who live daily.