Five African Nations Battling Covid-19

Ruth McDowall / AFP)

A staff mem­ber pre­pares a drone for the deliv­ery of med­ical sup­plies at the drone deliv­ery ser­vice base run by oper­a­tor Zipline in Ome­nako, 70 kilo­me­tres (40 miles) north of Accra on April 23, 2019. — Ghana launched a fleet of drones on April 24, 2019 to car­ry med­ical sup­plies to remote areas, with Ghana’s Pres­i­dent declar­ing it would become the “world’s largest drone deliv­ery service.”

The news is full of bad reports about the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic which is wreak­ing hav­oc all over the world. With a vac­cine at least months, if not a year away, there is cause for some opti­mism in the fight against the dis­ease in the African con­ti­nent. As we have been track­ing how nations are deal­ing with the issue, we found some inter­est­ing ways in which African nations are han­dling the situation. 

Mada­gas­car Unleash­es Cre­ativ­i­ty in the Search for a Cure 

In a recent tele­vi­sion broad­cast the pres­i­dent of the small African island nation of Mada­gas­car, Andry Rajoeli­na, pro­mot­ed an organ­ic coro­n­avirus rem­e­dy devel­oped in his coun­try called Covid Organ­ic. Although the rem­e­dy has not been approved by the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing the head of Madagascar’s Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine, the president’s resolve seemed unwa­ver­ing as he even took a shot of the drink dur­ing the promotion.

Devel­oped by the Mada­gas­car Insti­tute of Applied Research (IMRA), and derived from herbs, includ­ing Artemisia, a plant with renowned use in treat­ing malar­ia, the President’s con­fi­dence in the bev­er­age has been most high­light­ed by pub­lic door-to-door deliv­ery of the bev­er­age to cit­i­zens in the country’s cap­i­tal Antananarivo

Sene­gal Pro­vid­ing Free Covid-19 Tests To all Citizens 

While the coro­n­avirus has placed the world in dire need of a vac­cine, the West African nation of Sene­gal has embarked on a plan to pro­vide afford­able and read­i­ly avail­able test­ing kits to its cit­i­zens, aimed at flat­ten­ing the curve and curb­ing the spread of the disease.

Draw­ing from their expe­ri­ence in halt­ing the spread of the Ebo­la virus, the coun­try has also embarked on a rather lofty cam­paign to devel­op ear­ly-detec­tion mobile kits and 3D-print­ed ventilators.

Ghana Using Drones to Deliv­er Covid-19 Supplies 

All over the world, the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has attract­ed dras­tic mea­sures, prag­mat­ic deci­sion-mak­ing, and inge­nious solu­tions, and unsur­pris­ing­ly, black Africa’s first inde­pen­dent nation, Ghana has made com­mend­able steps in such direction.

The Sil­i­con Val­ley com­pa­ny, Zipline, work­ing close­ly with Ghana­ian author­i­ties has begun employ­ing the use of drones to shut­tle med­ical sup­plies and trans­port sam­ples from sus­pect­ed coro­n­avirus patients to labs in Ghana’s major cities. This mea­sure is ensur­ing faster and more effi­cient response to the virus in the country.

Botswana Man­dates the use of Face Masks 

The gov­ern­ment of Botswana has passed leg­is­la­tion mak­ing the use of face masks cov­er­ings in pub­lic places, includ­ing busi­ness­es and res­i­den­tial build­ings, com­pul­so­ry begin­ning May 1.

The author­i­ties issued guid­ance pro­vid­ing clar­i­ty on the type of masks to be worn by the gen­er­al pop­u­lace and those to be worn by health­care work­ers. Some of the mea­sures were designed to avoid scarci­ty of med­ical masks for those on the front­lines and most at risk, such as med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, per­sons han­dling clin­i­cal waste, or involved in oth­er Covid-19 relat­ed activities. 

Nige­ria Relax­es Covid-19 Lock­down Rules 

In what may seem like a direct response to the socio-eco­nom­ic real­i­ties of the coun­try, Nigeria’s pres­i­dent, Muham­mad Buhari, in a recent nation­al broad­cast, informed Nige­ri­ans of his deci­sion to start a cau­tious relax­ation of the lock­down in the country’s largest city, Lagos, as well as in the cap­i­tal city of Abuja.

Buhari assert­ed the impor­tance of keep­ing the lock­down in place until May 4, and in line with the dire socio-eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion faced by the African continent’s largest econ­o­my, the Pres­i­dent under­lined the impor­tance of ensur­ing that Nige­ri­a’s econ­o­my con­tin­ues to function.

Nige­ria, Africa’s most pop­u­lous nation and largest econ­o­my has report­ed over 2,000 con­firmed cas­es of Covid-19 and about 40 deaths so far.