Why Africa’s coronavirus outbreak appears slower than anticipated

South African Police Service (SAPS) and Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) vehicles drive in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, on April 10, 2020, as they conduct an operation to enforce the country's lockdown. (AFP)
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Updated 11 April 2020
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Why Africa’s coronavirus outbreak appears slower than anticipated

  • Health experts warned of the devastation the deadly virus could cause in Africa, where most hospitals are desperately short of equipment and trained staff
  • Coronavirus has since spread to 52 African countries, but despite a steady rise in the number of confirmed cases, the continent continues to lag behind the global curve for infections and deaths

JOHANNESBURG: When Africa’s first case of coronavirus was detected in Egypt in February, the rest of the continent prepared for the brunt of a pandemic that has engulfed Europe and spread to the United States, infecting more than 1.6 million worldwide.
Health experts warned of the devastation the deadly virus could cause in Africa, where most hospitals are desperately short of equipment and trained staff.
Coronavirus has since spread to 52 African countries, but despite a steady rise in the number of confirmed cases, the continent continues to lag behind the global curve for infections and deaths.
Still, the World Health Organization last month warned Africa faced a dramatic evolution of the pandemic even as governments imposed restrictions to help curb the spread. The continent appears poorly equipped to manage a major health crisis and is struggling to test enough to monitor virus cases.
To date the novel respiratory disease has infected more than 12,800 people on the continent and killed at least 692, according to a tally compiled by AFP.
Only the Comoros archipelago and the tiny kingdom of Lesotho have not yet detected any cases.
South Africa is the worst-affected country, with over 2,000 confirmed cases and 24 recorded deaths so far — well behind the more than 871,000 cases and 71,000 deaths counted in Europe to date.
Experts, however, warn that the tide is rising.
“During the last four days we can see that the numbers have already doubled,” said Michel Yao, the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa’s emergency response program manager.
“If the trend continues... some countries may face a huge peak very soon,” Yao told AFP.
WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti echoed the concern, adding that the spread of COVID-19 outside major cities opened “a new front in our fight against this virus.”
Possibly the greatest question mark in analyzes of coronavirus in Africa, compounded by a global lack of testing capacity.
Despite a donation of more than one million coronavirus testing kits by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, most African countries lack the equipment needed to detect the disease.
South Africa — which has the most advanced health care system in sub-Saharan Africa — has so far only managed to test around 73,000 of its 57 million inhabitants.
“This is way too low for the kind of challenges South Africa is facing,” said the country’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, who is aiming to scale up to 30,000 tests per day.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, has only carried out 5,000 coronavirus tests to date for a country of 190 million people.
“The testing system is quite overloaded,” admitted a doctor working at a private clinic in Lagos, who asked not to be identified.
“It takes time for... the results,” he added. “And are they accurate? We don’t know.”
Inability to test for the virus has forced several countries to work with vague and sometimes misleading estimates.
Kenya, for instance, has predicted its number of coronavirus cases to reach 10,000 by the end of April.
Ten days into the month, the number of detected infections remained lower than 200.
“The reason is we have not gone to do community-based testing,” explained the Director General of Kenya’s health ministry, Patrick Amoth.
“So we still stand by our earlier projections. We don’t know what is going to happen.”
The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, admitted that Africa’s coronavirus statistics were far from “perfect.”
“We just lack the means,” he told AFP.
But Nkengasong also dismissed claims that a high number of infections had slipped under the radar, pointing out that hospitals “would be flooded with people” if that was the case.
The delayed spread of coronavirus gave African countries some leeway to roll out the same measures implemented in Europe to stem the disease.
Governments across the continent reacted ahead of time, closing borders and imposing lockdowns and curfews when just a handful of cases had been detected.
Those measures have been tricky to enforce in impoverished and densely populated neighborhoods, where houses are overcrowded and most survive off informal work — making it almost impossible to remain home.
The WHO’s Moeti cautioned that it was “too early to say” whether anti-coronavirus measures were slowing the epidemic in Africa.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said earlier this week that there was “sufficient evidence” to show that a nation-wide lockdown was “working.”
“In the two weeks before the lockdown, the average daily increase in new cases was around 42 percent. Since the start of the lockdown, the average daily increase has been around 4 percent,” Ramaphosa said on Thursday, as he announced an extension of the 21-day shutdown.
The time gained by African governments could be offset by a lack of means.
“There is a severe shortage of treatment facilities for critical cases of Covid-19,” said a WHO statement.
There are barely five intensive care unit beds per one million people in Africa, compared to 4,000 in Europe, according to the organization.
Public hospitals only have 2,000 medical ventilators between them to serve the whole continent.
Still no one dares make any predictions on the proportions the novel coronavirus could reach in Africa.
The WHO noted that 31 countries on the continent had less than 100 confirmed cases and believed “containment was possible.”
Yet the threat remains.
“COVID-19 has the potential to cause thousands of deaths,” said the WHO’s Moeti. “To also unleash economic and social devastation.”


Germany brushes off Musk calling Scholz a ‘fool’

Updated 5 sec ago
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Germany brushes off Musk calling Scholz a ‘fool’

Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann took a playful dig at the US tycoon, saying that “on X, you have Narrenfreiheit,” which translates to the freedom to act like a fool
A tight-lipped Scholz simply called it “not very friendly“

BERLIN: German officials on Friday brushed off tech billionaire Elon Musk labelling Olaf Scholz a “fool” on his social media platform X after the dramatic collapse of the chancellor’s coalition government.
In a comment Thursday above a post about the implosion of Scholz’s long-troubled coalition, the world’s richest man tweeted in German: “Olaf ist ein Narr” — “Olaf is a fool.”
Asked about Musk’s comment, government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann took a playful dig at the US tycoon, saying that “on X, you have Narrenfreiheit,” which translates to the freedom to act like a fool.
The word refers to revellers during Germany’s traditional carnival season, which starts next week, having the freedom to act without inhibitions.
Historically, the term echoes the notion of the “jester’s privilege” — the right of a court jester to mock those in power without being punished by the king.
Asked later about the comment, a tight-lipped Scholz simply called it “not very friendly,” adding that Internet companies are “not organs of state so I did not even pay it any attention.”
Musk strongly supported US election winner Donald Trump, and is now positioned to take up a role in his administration as a deputy tasked with restructuring government operations.
It is not the first time the Tesla boss has had run-ins with German officials online.
Last year he said Berlin-funded migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean could be seen as an “invasion” of Italy, sparking a terse response from the German foreign ministry.
He has also expressed sympathy for some of the positions of Germany’s far-right AfD party, which has notched up a string of recent electoral successes and is riding high in the opinion polls.

First flight with Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam lands in Tel Aviv

Updated 08 November 2024
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First flight with Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam lands in Tel Aviv

  • The plane that arrived in Tel Aviv had passengers evacuated from Amsterdam

TEL AVIV: The first flight carrying Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam after violent clashes following a football match there landed on Friday at Ben Gurion International Airport, the Israel Airports Authority said.
“The plane that arrived in Tel Aviv now has passengers evacuated from Amsterdam,” Liza Dvir, spokeswoman for the airport authority told AFP.


India’s Modi rejects calls to restore Kashmir’s partial autonomy

Updated 08 November 2024
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India’s Modi rejects calls to restore Kashmir’s partial autonomy

  • Modi revoked partial autonomy in 2019 and split the state into the two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh 
  • Jammu and Kashmir held its first local election in a decade this year, newly-elected lawmakers passed resolution this week seeking restoration

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly backed his government’s contentious 2019 decision to revoke the partial autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, days after the territory’s newly elected lawmakers sought its restoration.
“Only the constitution of Babasaheb Ambedkar will operate in Kashmir... No power in the world can restore Article 370 (partial autonomy) in Kashmir,” Modi said, referring to one of the founding fathers of the Indian constitution.
Modi was speaking at a state election rally in the western state of Maharashtra, where Ambedkar was from.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government revoked partial autonomy in 2019 and split the state into the two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh — a move that was opposed by many political groups in the Himalayan region.
Jammu and Kashmir held its first local election in a decade in September and October and the newly-elected lawmakers passed a resolution this week seeking the restoration.
Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party had promised in its election manifesto that it would restore the partial autonomy, although the power to do so lies with Modi’s federal government.
Jammu and Kashmir’s new lawmakers can legislate on local issues like other Indian states, except matters regarding public order and policing. They will also need the approval of the federally-appointed administrator on all policy decisions that have financial implications.
Under the system of partial autonomy, Kashmir had its own constitution and the freedom to make laws on all issues except foreign affairs, defense and communications.
The troubled region, where separatist militants have fought security forces since 1989, is India’s only Muslim-majority territory.
It has been at the center of a territorial dispute with Pakistan since the neighbors gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars over the region.


Kyiv says Russia has returned bodies of 563 soldiers

Updated 08 November 2024
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Kyiv says Russia has returned bodies of 563 soldiers

  • The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation
  • The announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of killed Ukrainian servicemen

KYIV: Ukraine said on Friday it had received the bodies of 563 soldiers from Russian authorities, mainly troops that had died in combat in the eastern Donetsk region.
The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia invaded in 2022.
“The bodies of 563 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on social media.
The announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of killed Ukrainian servicemen since the beginning of the war.
The statement said that 320 of the remains were returned from the Donetsk region and that 89 of the soldiers had been killed near Bakhmut, a town captured by Russia in May last year after a costly battle.
Another 154 of the bodies were returned from morgues inside Russia, the statement added.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine publicly disclose how many military personnel have been killed fighting.


Russia sentences soldiers who massacred Ukraine family to life in prison

Updated 08 November 2024
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Russia sentences soldiers who massacred Ukraine family to life in prison

  • The court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred“
  • The incident triggered uproar in Ukraine

MOSCOW: A Russian court sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine people in their home in occupied Ukraine, state media reported on Friday.
Russian prosecutors said in October 2023, the two Russian soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the home of the Kapkanets family in the city of Volnovakha with guns equipped with silencers.
They then shot all nine family members who lived there, including two children aged five and nine.
The southern district military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred,” the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement source.
The incident triggered uproar in Ukraine.
Kyiv alleged at the time that the Russian soldiers had murdered the family in their sleep after they refused to move out of their home to allow Russian soldiers to live there.
“The occupiers killed the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and refused to give up their home,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the murder.
Russian forces seized the city of Volnovakha in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region at the start of their full-scale military offensive.
It was virtually destroyed by Russian artillery strikes.
Russian soldiers have been accused of multiple instances of killing civilians in Ukrainian towns and cities they have occupied since February 2022.
Moscow has always denied targeting civilians and tried to claim reports of atrocities at places like Bucha were fake, despite widespread evidence from multiple independent sources.
The arrest and sentencing in this case is a rare example of Russia admitting to a crime committed by its troops in Ukraine.
State media did not say what prosecutors determined the reason for the attack was.
TASS suggested it could have been a “domestic dispute,” while both the independent Radio Free Europe and Kommersant business outlets said it could have been linked to a dispute over obtaining vodka.
The trial was held in secret.
The independent Radio Free Europe outlet reported the Rau, 28, and Sopov, 21 were mercenaries for the Wagner paramilitary before joining Russia’s official army.
They had both received state awards a few months before the mass murder, it said.