Africa is on track to control the coronavirus and its new variations this year, according to the World Health Organization’s regional director for the continent’s nations.

Since the initial Covid-19 virus outbreak in February 2020, African nations have encountered a variety of issues, including the effect of lockdowns on businesses and livelihoods and discrepancies in the availability to vaccines.

According to statistics from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infection and mortality rates on the continent were comparatively low, with a larger number of recoveries than cases recorded internationally (Africa CDC).
“The African continent has been wiser, quicker, and better at reacting to each each increase in cases of Covid-19 over the last two years,” stated Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.

“If present trends continue, we may finally claim that the end of the tunnel is near. The continent has a good chance of containing the pandemic as long as we stay watchful and focus our efforts on vaccination in particular “At a news conference on Thursday, Moeti said.

Lockdowns are no longer effective in containing COVID-19, according to the Africa CDC.

According to the Africa CDC, about 11 million Covid cases (3 percent of all cases reported worldwide) and around 242,000 deaths associated with Covid (4.2% of all deaths reported worldwide) have been recorded in Africa as of February 10th. As of Thursday, just 11 percent of the continent’s adult population had been properly vaccinated, the World Health Organization said in a statement.

An entirely new phase of the epidemic has begun.

Africa has had to deal with four different strains of the extremely contagious disease. Every wave of the coronavirus has emerged with “greater peaks or more total new cases than the preceding one,” according to the WHO Africa branch. Although the fourth wave “was finished in six weeks” and “represents the first time a wave’s spike in cases has not led to a proportionate increase in hospitalizations and fatalities,” WHO reported.

It is possible that Africa’s Covid infection rates are significantly greater than previously thought, according to Moeti.

Our surveillance systems difficulties on the continent, with availability to testing materials… have led to an underestimate of instances,” she added.

Covid-19 vaccines will be manufactured in South Africa by Pfizer-BioNTech in 2022.
According to Moeti, African health systems must be strengthened as the epidemic enters a new phase so that the region can better respond to future outbreaks.

In 15 African nations, the WHO Africa office is leading a program to increase Covid testing and deliver infection control items such as face masks and hand gels.

In only two years, the number of Covid labs across the continent went from two to over 900, according to the health department.

While African CDC chief Dr. John Nkengasong expressed concern that Covid-19 may spread throughout the continent due to a lack of vaccinations, Dr. Nkengasong also cautioned that strict lockdowns were no longer the best strategy for keeping the virus under control.

According to a World Bank assessment released in April, the epidemic has pushed an estimated 40 million people into severe poverty in Africa, and containment efforts like lockdowns have cost the region billions of dollars in lost GDP.