The coronavirus was first confirmed in the Chinese city of Wuhan on January 7, 2020. Cases have since been confirmed in over 80 countries across the globe.
The World Health Organisation, WHO, has since declared it a public health emergency of international dimensions. WHO chief Tedros Ghebereyesus said whiles China had a robust health system to detect and control, his outfit remained concerned about the virus entering country’s with weak systems.
Almost all African governments have publicly put in place strict screening at points of entry especially airports. Cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Senegal and Nigeria.
African airlines have cancelled scheduled flights to China except for Ethiopian Airlines.
Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that range from the common cold to MERS coronavirus, which is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus and SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus.
In this article, we will share the latest developments as authorities implement measures to contain the spread of the virus, especially on the African continent.
Nigeria acknowledges Dangote’s preparedness donation
Nigeria president Muhammadu Buhari has acknowledged a donation from Africa’s richest man towards the country’s preparedness towards the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Hand in hand, standing shoulder to shoulder, we can confront our challenges as a country. This is a path for us all to follow as a people,” Buhari said in a statement.
The Aliko Dangote foundation, ADF, earlier in the week announced a 200 million naira donation to fight the virus in Nigeria. The country currently has only a confirmed case of an Italian national who arrived in Lagos weeks back.
A major chunk of the donation, N124million, was earmarked to support facilities to help prevent, assess and respond to health events at Point of Entry to ensure National Health Security.
“The donation was part of the Foundation’s cardinal objective of partnering with governments at all levels against the dreaded disease in Nigeria and the rest of Africa,” a top official of the foundation said.
Minister Eteni Longondo said travellers from Italy, France, Germany and China with no coronavirus symptoms will be asked to self quarantine for 14 days whiles those with symptoms will be transferred to a government-run isolation facility.
This is part of efforts by the government aimed at prevention and or detection of the virus which has arrived in all regions of Africa except for East Africa as at Friday, March 6.
The closest neighbour of DRC with a confirmed case is Cameroon, where two cases were reported on Friday. South Africa also confirmed its index case on Thursday.
Egypt’s health ministry on Friday announced had detected 12 cases of new coronavirus among staff on board a cruise ship on the Nile River in the south of the country.
The health ministry said in a statement that the 12 cases were detected in Egyptian employees on a cruise ship travelling from Aswan to Luxor, two tourist sites in Upper Egypt, “without showing any symptoms” of the disease.
The authorities were alerted after a Taiwanese tourist “of American origin” who had traveled on the boat was found to be the source of the spread of the disease, according to the joint statement with the World Health Organization (WHO).
The 12 Egyptian employees suspected of being infected had been quarantined and tested positive for Covid-19 at the end of their two-week confinement.
Other tourists who came into contact with the Taiwanese tourist were also quarantined, according to the press release.
Egypt which was the first country in Africa to report a case of coronavirus, had so far confirmed three cases including a Chinese man who has since recovered, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the country to 15.
First Coronavirus case hits Cameroon.
A release today from Cameroon's Ministry of Public Health says a French national arrived Yaounde with the virus and has been under medical observation.
There have so far been 27 cases of the coronavirus on the continent; in Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.
South Africa records first case
South Africa’s health minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize on Thursday confirmed that the country had recorded its first case of the coronavirus.
Algeria’s health ministry said nine new cases were registered from a family living in the northern Blida district, some 30km (20 miles) from the capital, Algiers.
According to Reuters, the family which accounts for 16 of the 17 cases last month hosted a man and his daughter based in France who were tested positive for coronavirus after flying back to France.
“Mobilisation of health teams remains at its hightest level,” the health ministry said in a statement, adding that government has put medical staff at hospitals, mainly in Blida and nearby towns, on alert to cope with new case
2 South Africans recover from coronavirus
South Africa says its nationals who had tested positive on the cruise ship Diamond Princess ‘ave now tested negative and will shortly be making their way home’.
The pair who initially tested positive for coronavirus had been hospitalised in Japan after being taken ashore from the cruise ship where they worked.
South Africa, which last week said it would evacuate its nationals from the Chinese city of Wuhan, adding that those plans are at an ‘advanced stage’.
“A total of 184 South Africans have indicated their desire to be repatriated,” it adds in a statement.
They are said to be mostly “students, teachers and other professionals”.
The Diamond Princess was first quarantined in January when a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for coronavirus.
Tunisia suspends ferry services to Italy
Tunisia’s health minister Abdelatif el-Mekki said on Wednesday the country will suspend passenger ferry services to northern Italy, as one of the measures aimed at preventing the spread of coronavirus.
The news follows Monday’s confirmation of a first case in the country; a Tunisian national who had recently arrived from Italy by sea.
Other measures taken by authorities include a separate terminal at Tunis airport for flights from northern Italy, which keeps passengers apart before a screening process.
Foreign football fans have also been banned from attending games with local clubs. Two Tunisian teams are scheduled to play against clubs from Morocco and Egypt in the coming days.
Senegal records two news cases
Senegal on Wednesday announced its third and fourth cases of coronavirus bringing the country’s tally to four. A statement from the Health Ministry said the two new cases had been confirmed by the Institut Pasteur de Dakar.
One of the new patients is connected with the second confirmed case. The 68-year-old French national is the wife of the patient diagnosed on Tuesday. The other patient is a 33-year-old English national who arrived in Dakar on February 24 from London.
On Monday, Senegal announced the first case of coronavirus in the country, becoming the second in sub-Saharan Africa after one was confirmed in Nigeria last week.
The index patient was a French man who lives in Senegal and came back from a skiing holiday in France on Feb. 26 on an Air Senegal flight, Health Minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr told reporters.
Africa Basketball League postponed
The Basketball Africa League, which was supposed to start next week in Senegal, has been postponed over the coronavirus outbreak.
The cancellation was done after advice from the Senegalese government, which on Monday confirmed that a second person had tested positive for the coronavirus.
12 teams including Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia were scheduled to compete. The league is being organised in partnership of America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).
Senegal, which is hosting the competition, has confirmed two cases of coronavirus, bringing the total confirmed cases in Africa to 12.
The other countries affected are Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia.
“We have worked very hard to strengthen our systems in preparedness for this outbreak,” the director of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, Chikwe Ihekweazu, tweeted.
“The Ebola outbreak taught us a lot of lessons,” Ihekweazu wrote in a commentary for The Conversation last month. As of December, all 36 of Nigeria’s states had a rapid response team in case of a disease outbreak, he wrote, and 22 states had emergency operations centers to better coordinate a response.
Nigeria is also currently dealing with an outbreak of Lassa fever, an indication of the health challenges that many African nations face.
With the new virus case announced in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with 190 million people and numerous air links around the continent and beyond, other nations warned of possible spread.
“Given these recent developments globally and in Africa, it is not unlikely that we will have importation of COVID-19 to South Africa,” that country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases said.
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