Coronavirus: WHO Issues Warning To Africa
The World Health Organization, in a statement on Thursday cautioned African nations against the easing of coronavirus restrictions, holding that towing this path would lead to a surge in the number of coronavirus cases.
The WHO regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti made this known in a virtual news conference, citing evidence from the spike in the number of cases in some African countries who have eased coronavirus restrictions to support her claim’
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“We are concerned that, we will see an increase in cases as we have seen in other countries where restrictions have been eased too soon”
She further added that over 20 African countries are already experiencing this reality, with South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe taking the lead according to recent reports.
Also, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also exercised concern that some inaccurate coronavirus myths is possibly responsible for the recent flouting of restrictions and precautionary measures, particularly the notion that the virus is less lethal to the younger population
“Although older people are at a higher risk of severe disease, younger people are at risk too. One of the challenges we face is convincing younger people of this risk.
“Evidence suggests that spikes of cases in some countries are being driven in part by younger people letting down their guard during the Northern Hemisphere summer
“We have said it before and we’ll say it again; young people are not invincible” Tedros said.
The World Health Organization’s warning appears to emanate from the gradual easing of the coronavirus restrictions by many African nations in view of the toll these restrictions had taken on their respective economies.
With clinical trials ongoing in different parts of the world in the quest to craft a potent vaccine to tackle the virus, it remains uncertain if these countries will re-initiate the lockdown restrictions which greatly affected their citizens in many ways.
