In the spotlight: Africa hit by a third wave of Covid-19
Audio 04:24
South Africans wait to receive a dose of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine on June 3, 2021, near Johannesburg.
South Africa remains the country most affected in Africa by the pandemic.
© AP - Denis Farrell
By: Frédéric Couteau Follow
9 mins
Publicity
“
Against a global downward trend since early May, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated in Africa for the fifth week in a row.
This is what
Le Point Afrique has
observed in
particular.
The trajectory of Covid cases in Africa is "very, very worrying", estimated the WHO on Friday, with the spread of more contagious variants and a dangerously low vaccination rate. According to data collected by the WHO, there were 116,500 new infections in Africa last week, 25,500 more than the previous week. (…) The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia and Uganda recorded their highest number of weekly cases since the start of the pandemic, underlines the WHO, which specifies that this increase is largely explained by meteorology seasonally cooler in southern Africa and the spread of more contagious variants.
"
South Africa therefore remains the country most affected by the virus.
“
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced,
further specifies
Le Point Afrique, a return to stricter measures while hospital admissions have increased by nearly 60% over the past two weeks
.
"
Niger intensifies its vaccination campaign
West Africa remains less affected but the threat is still present ...
Example in Niger, points out
Le Monde Afrique
: "
the Minister of Public Health, Idi Illiassou Maïnassara, announced last Tuesday the launch of a second phase in the vaccination campaign which will be open to all adults and throughout the territory.
The aim of the operation is to convince public opinion of the "need for everyone to be vaccinated".
Vaccination teams will be deployed in public health centers, but also in private structures and within neighborhoods to reach as many people as possible.
The campaign began in the country at the end of March, says Monde Afrique, thanks to a Chinese donation of 400,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine.
The government then received 355,000 doses of AstraZeneca through the Covax international solidarity mechanism.
As of June 14, only 14,000 people had been fully vaccinated.
"
Uganda in trouble
The situation in Uganda is much more problematic, underlines
Le Monde Afrique: “the health services are facing a shortage of oxygen and vaccines.
Some hospitals, private and public, are no longer able to accommodate new patients with Covid-19 in intensive care.
"Uganda is currently facing a very big challenge," said Minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng.
More than "8,000 canisters of oxygen" would be needed today "to supply the whole country".
As for vaccines, the country's distribution center, the National Medical Stores, has stopped supplying establishments since the start of the week.
Vaccination centers and hospitals were forced to suspend their work.
"
"The production of vaccines in Africa is not a utopia"
Asked by
Jeune Afrique
, the Senegalese Minister of Health, Awa Marie Coll-Seck, doctor, researcher and specialist in bacteriology, insists on the urgency to strengthen health systems on the continent.
"
No matter how much progress we can make in the fight against diseases, if we do not set up a solid system with trained staff, quality infrastructure, surveillance and alert systems, a logistics chain. , funding, resources distributed throughout the territory and not only in the big cities, there will be no improvement
.
She warns.
And then, continues Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Africa must manage to produce a vaccine.
“
Senegal has at least two very advanced sites on the issue, including the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, which already produces vaccines against yellow fever.
Others are very well placed, like South Africa or the Maghreb countries, and I hear about initiatives in Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia… I think,
concludes the Senegalese Minister of Health
, that if we start by relying on countries that already have skills and infrastructures and that we help them to strengthen themselves, the production of vaccines in Africa is not a utopia.
"
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