The director of the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical de Portugal argues that the only solution to the low rate of anti-covid vaccination in Africa is natural immunity, which is expected to be achievable with the Ômicron variant.
“We hope that, with Ômicron, we will be able to have a natural immunity to replace this lack of vaccine coverage. It is the only chance we have at the moment”, says Filomeno Fortes, in an interview with the Lusa network.
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On February 14, 2020, the Egyptian Government confirmed the first case of coronavirus in the country, which was also the first confirmed case in Africa. Since then, the continent has recorded 10 million cases of infection with the coronavirus and 245,000 deaths, which represents 2.5% of global morbidity and 4% of mortality worldwide, although Africa represents 17% of the global population.
About a year after the start of vaccination on the continent, and when the global vaccination rate already exceeds 50% in the world, Africa continues to be the continent with the fewest vaccinated and only 11% of the population has the first two doses of the vaccine. vaccine, says the director of the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (IHMT).
Given this scenario, and with the perspective, already admitted by the World Health Organization, of the continent not being able to reach the goal of having 70% of the population vaccinated before 2024, Filomeno Fortes says that some African countries are considering easing security measures to allow achieving natural immunity.
This possibility arises from the fact that the Ômicron variant is not so lethal and confers natural immunity to those who are infected, explains the scientist. However, epidemiology recalls, however, that if countries excessively ease security measures, there will be more infection and this will lead to an overload of health services, which are already weakened.
Therefore, the solution will be for African countries to “allow people to move more”, but simultaneously “reinforce the isolation of the sick with palliative measures, with control measures and with home monitoring, without harming health units too much”.
Fortes recalls that natural immunity through the virus itself is something that “happens for centuries”, exemplifying that there are regions in Africa where 60% or 70% of the population lives with the malaria parasite in circulation in balance with the human organism. “This is what we can now imagine with the situation at Ômicron”, he concludes.
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