(3 minutes read)
· The spike in the number of coronavirus cases in Africa has
promoted the World Health Organization (WHO) to sound an alarm bell.
· The WHO says that many socioeconomic factors in Africa such
as housing , access to running water, lack of awareness of the disease
etc make measures like social-distancing, frequent hand washing and
other hygiene measures challenging.
The spike in the number of coronavirus cases in Africa has promoted
the World Health Organization (WHO) to sound an alarm bell. Earlier
the affected persons for each country were blow 10 and now it is
surging ahead as it spreads to more and more countries. Now only a few
countries in Africa are free of the pandemic. The WHO says that as of
last week, there were 1321 COVID-19 cases and 34 confirmed deaths
related to the virus — up from 463 cases and 10 deaths a week back
The WHO says that many socioeconomic factors in Africa such as
housing , access to running water, lack of awareness of the disease
etc make measures like social-distancing, frequent hand washing and
other hygiene measures challenging. The World Health Organization is
looking for solutions that are adaptable to Africa’s circumstances,
including working with partners and governments to get sanitizing
materials to hospitals and families.
Some of the countries are taking serious measures to contain the
pandemic. South Africa, declared it as a national disaster last week,
banned public gatherings and put travel bans to some countries. Its
air travel operations have been banned in some countries, where there
are higher incidences of virus attack. Kenya also has imposed its
own travel and crowd restrictions. However, in general the responses
to the contagion from many other countries are lukewarm.
