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| Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari |
European scientists remain baffled as to why the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has still not killed a single African and has not gone viral in Africa, with a few of the cases there being related to Europeans that actually brought the virus there as migrants.
In a post by the publication "New Scientist", European scientists say they are puzzled by the zero mortality rate and low infection rate from the COVID-19 virus among Africans, when compared to that of Europeans and the rest of the world, moreso in light of Africa's heavy trading with China, the purported origin of the COVID-19 virus.
The information is fully explained on their website as the writings and assertions are based on the opinions of experts in the field. To date, there have been only two reported deaths on the African continent from the virus, with one being a foreigner and the other being an elderly Moroccan woman that died due to comorbidity from the viral infection. She was 86 years old.
Also, while there have been far more cases of infection across Egypt in the North, far fewer cases with zero mortality have been reported across much of sub-Sahara Africa with 37 of the 50 countries on the continent now having testing capabilities, a hugely significant jump from just two at the end of January.
According to the publication, a WHO representative believes the running tally of COVID-19 cases across the continent to be accurate due to heightened awareness across the African continent unlike the laissez-faire approach the United States and much of Europe adopted at the onset of the pandemic.
According to data, most cases in Africa have been imported not from China but from Europe. Four African countries have imposed quarantines on visitors from coronavirus hotspots. Unlike virus cases, quarantine numbers aren’t being reported.
More broadly, on the monitoring efforts to detect the virus at airports and other entry routes, Whitworth says “a lot’s being done”, citing coordination by the WHO and both the African and US Centres for Disease Control. Rwanda, for example, has recruited final year medical students to undertake screening at airports.
African countries are both vulnerable and potentially more resilient to the coronavirus. On the one hand, the population is much younger than in Europe and China. The median population age in the UK is 40.2 and in China it is 37, but this figure is 17.9 in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. “If you look at the statistics from China, the people that have worse prognosis are the older people, not necessarily the young.
Source: newscientist.com
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