Africa could become the next epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, WHO warns

It comes after the World Health Organization warned that the continent could become the next epicentre of the pandemic. African countries have accounted for 26,000 cases as of today, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The figure is up form just over 16,000 cases reported a week ago.

Around 1,200 people have died of Covid-19 on the continent.

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in his weekly briefing today that Africa also has a “very, very limited” and “very, very strained” testing capacity.

The WHO warned the pandemic could kill more than 300,000 people and force 30 million into extreme poverty in Africa.

According to Mr Nkengasong, Africa can still avoid such a catastrophe, but testing people and contact tracing is vital.

“It all depends on what we are discussing here, which is, are you testing? Are you finding the cases? Are you isolating and tracking the contacts?” Mr Nkengasong said, adding that the WHO report “is not a prediction that means it must happen.”

Left than 500,000 have been conducted on Africa’s population of more than 1 billion.

That is just 325 people tested per 1 million people in the two months since the continent started putting measures into place to tackle the outbreak.

“If you don’t test, you don’t find. And if you don’t test, you are blinded. If you don’t test, you are not ahead of the curve,” Mr Nkengasong said.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control has a target of carrying out 1 million more tests in Africa over the next four weeks and 10 million tests in the next four months.

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The country has conducted over 130,000 tests, according to its health minister.

“They are starting to see a bending of their curve,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa.

But according to Mr Moeti, South Africa’s early signs of success in the fight against the virus are being intensified “concerning increases” in confirmed cases in some countries in West Africa and East Africa.