The World Health Organization on Thursday warned about the possibility of community spread of the coronavirus in a large number of West African countries, reported Reuters.
The WHO Africa director Dr. Matshediso Moeti said there is concern around the sharp rise in cases in West Africa.
“Where we are seeing community spread in a significant number of countries compared to others,” Moeti said. “We are working particularly with the UN in West Africa to see how to support that.”
Sub-Saharan Africa has reported over 23,800 coronavirus cases with over 900 deaths. While a number of countries have imposed targeted lockdowns, dusk-to-dawn curfews and travel restrictions in some major cities, they have refrained from nationwide lockdowns as imposed in most European countries and South Africa.
Moeti said the governments needed to use data to back their extremely important decision of imposing or removing restrictions.
“When a government decides not to lockdown a city, they need to be aware that there would be consequences in terms of the spread of the virus,” she said. “We hope that these decisions are made having taken into account overall, the balance between enabling economies to grow and stopping the spread of a pandemic that can have profound long-term impact on the economy.”
She also shared some encouraging news from other African countries and said certain countries including relatively small countries such as Namibia, Mauritania and Seychelles recorded zero cases in the last couple of weeks. She said these countries have put in place some measures, early measures starting with testing and contact tracing which have produced such positive results.
The North Africa region had reported the highest number of cases with 14,500. South Africa and Egypt had the highest cases both at around 5,300 each, and Algeria recorded the highest number of fatalities at 444. Comoros also confirmed its first coronavirus case on Thursday.
