If we pay attention to official figures, the spread of the pandemic on the African continent has been extremely limited, as has mortality. Some argue that it is due to the youth of the population, previous immunities or even genetics. However, others consider that the truth is hidden beyond the records, that they have not managed to keep up with the pace of the pandemic and that they do not take into account millions of infections and deaths.
When the specter of the pandemic began to hover beyond China in early 2020, many feared the worst for the African continent. If the new coronavirus devastated as it did in Spain, Italy or the United States, what would its impact be like in African countries, many of which have fewer resources to deal with this type of crisis?
The fear, shared among the population and experts, was transformed after the first months of the pandemic. “Expectations were not met. Even myself, as an African epidemiologist, I did not expect this,” admits Catherine Kyobutungi, director of the African Population and Health Research Center.
“It became clear early on that many African countries imposed restrictive measures to prevent and stop the spread of the virus. That probably gave us time, it gave us an advantage,” says the expert.
Today, the African continent accumulates just over 11 million infections and approximately 252,000 fatalities, according to official figures. They are records that are light years away from the rest of the world’s regions, which count their deceased by millions. With the perspective of time, the question arises: has Africa really escaped the disaster of the pandemic or are numbers simply deceiving us?
African letters in favor of the fight against the pandemic
There are many conjectures that have flourished around the supposed advantages of African countries in the face of the health crisis. One of those that gains the most consensus is the youth of the population: the average age of the entire region is just 18 years old, while that of Europe is 43, a significant difference in the fight against a disease that disproportionately affects older adults.
However, many other countries in other regions of the world have young populations and have been severely impacted by Covid-19, so it does not serve as the sole explanation. Kyobutungi highlights the African experience in managing health crises: “Health ministries are prepared to emphasize prevention. I have lived through an Ebola outbreak and I know that the whole world is on alert, even with a single case. the same with cholera outbreaks, everything is on alert. The system is ready to deal with public health crises,” he recalls.
Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, a South African epidemiologist and professor of public health at the Caprisa center, adds other reflections. “It is evident to me that societies that highly value mutual interdependence, shared responsibility as a community, that put common values and joint protection above personal desires, those societies have fared better (in the face of the pandemic) “.
“In many African communities there is much more value placed on ‘we’ versus ‘me,” he shares.
Other explanations that have emerged have to do with the immune systems of many African populations, “trained by repeated infections against other viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2,” explains Kyobutungi. Possible genetic differences have also been conjectured. However, Abdool Karim is blunt in recalling that “they are just that, conjecture. There is no data.”
What does the data tell us?
Faced with the scarcity of studies that explain the evolution of the pandemic on the African continent, something that contrasts with the constellation of information around Covid-19 in other parts of the world, Dr. Abdool Karim invites us to review the data that does exist .
To begin with, several investigations have been carried out around the seroprevalence against the Covid-19 virus among the population of several African countries. The most recent figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) conclude that more than two thirds of the continent had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, 800 million people in September 2021. Having antibodies implies having undergone an infection; On that same date, 8.2 million infections had been officially reported.
Another relevant piece of information is excess deaths, which represents the difference between fatalities in a typical year compared to fatalities in a pandemic year. In all regions of the world there has been an excess of deaths that can only be explained by Covid-19, even though the deaths are not officially recorded as such.
For example, in Europe it is estimated that 3.2 million people lost their lives due to the pandemic, despite the fact that public figures record 1.78 million deaths. Something similar happens in Latin America, where confirmed deaths are 1.68 million, but the excess of deaths indicates that there could be 2.6 million fatalities from the pandemic.
The difference in Africa is abysmal. From the 252,211 official deaths, we move on to the possibility of 3 million deaths in figures added by ‘The Economist’. More than two and a half million invisible deaths. A magnitude of victims like this would be equated with Europe, for example.
However, it is important to keep in mind that, compared to the population, the mortality from Covid-19 in Africa would be around 220 per 100,000 inhabitants, approximately half the proportion in Europe, where 430 people per 100,000 people died. The conclusion? Africa did not avoid the pandemic. At best, he suffered only slightly less.
A preconceived image of the pandemic?
The field hospitals in China, the rows of coffins in Italy, Times Square in quarantine in New York, the desperate searches for oxygen by the inhabitants of Manaus: these are the images that went around the world and that we have all associated with the pandemic of Covid-19.
However, these images never appeared on the African continent, with a few exceptions. That led many to think that the crisis did not exist. But, with the figures in hand, it is more likely that the pandemic simply had other images and expressions in Africa and the world was not attentive enough to see it.
A key difference is, for example, access to formal healthcare, vastly different in some African countries than in the global north. “Do patients not get sick and therefore do not need care? Or do patients get sick but have no way to access medical care and overload the hospital system?” Abdool Karim asks. This is how they respond: “It is a combination of factors, counting systems that do not work and less access to health.”
“That doesn’t mean anything beyond the fact that those of us who live in Africa get infected like everyone else, we get sick like everyone else, we need oxygen like everyone else and we die like everyone else. There is absolutely nothing that makes Africans special,” concludes the professor .
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