Africa Union and WHO join hands to fight against COVID 19 in Africa

"I assure you that WHO is committed to work with all African countries to do everything we can to prevent transmission, detect and treat cases as early as possible,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

As the danger of spreading COVID 19 in Africa is looming large, the African Union (AU) has decided to work in collaboration with WHO for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. According to reports about 13 African countries having direct trade relations and a high volume of travel with China have been recognized as high-risk nations.  

“We’ve also shipped more than 30,000 sets of personal protective equipment to six countries in Africa, and we’re ready to ship almost 60,000 more sets to 19 countries in the coming weeks,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, DG of WHO on February 22. He further informed that the WHO was also working with manufacturers of personal protective equipment (PPE) to address the severe disruption in the market for masks, gloves, gowns and other PPE, to ensure we can protect. The WHO has also trained about 11,000 African health workers to handle COVID 19 patients. “We have published a Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan with a call for US$ 675m to support countries, especially the most vulnerable,” he added. With the help of laboratory kits supplied by the WHO, an increasing number of African countries are now able to test for #COVID19. The WHO is also providing advisory services to countries on how to conduct screening, testing, contact tracing, and treatment.

Meanwhile, the number of COVID 19 patients has increased to 75,569 in China and about 2239 people have died. Dr. Tedros expressed satisfaction on the decrease in the number of infections in China but issued a note of caution. So far, outside China, 1200 cases and 8 deaths have been reported from 26 countries.