Head of Africa Center for Disease Control praises community approach to fighting COVID-19

Posted: Thursday, September 24, 2020. 1:19 pm CST.

By BBN Staff: The African Union (AU) a 55-member block of countries has managed to keep its COVID-19 deaths relatively low when compared to American and European countries and the head of the AU’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) says that a community approach to fighting the virus has been the key to their success.

The BBC reports that since February 1.4 million cases and 34,000 deaths, putting the continent that has over a billion people at just 5% of global COVID-19 infections and 3.6% of deaths related to the virus. Dr. Nkengasong attributed the successes in keeping deaths low to a “joint continental effort” noting that emphasis was placed on testing and the wearing of masks.

“This virus is in the community, and without a strong community response and strong community engagement there is no chance we can fight it,” Dr. Nkengasong said.

“In many countries, including Ethiopia where I live, if you go to the streets of Addis Ababa you will see there is almost 100% masking,” he added.

The majority of Africa’s infections and deaths are found in south Africa, where targeted efforts are being scaled up to address major issues with the viral spread. Data from Worldometer shows that South Africa is responsible for 665,188 of Africa’s total infections along with 16,206 of the total deaths.

Notably, South Africa is ranked 10th in the world in terms of being impacted by COVID-19. Meanwhile, the United States, India, Brazil and Russia takes up the top four spots respectively, with their combined infections reaching almost 20 million.  

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