Africa: the continent resists the Covid-19 pandemic
Laboratory technicians from the Institut Pasteur in Madagascar perform so-called “PCR” tests to determine whether patients are positive for Covid-19.
April 23, 2020, in Antananarivo.
RIJASOLO / AFP
Text by: Agnès Rougier
6 mins
The Covid epidemic in Africa is not behaving like in the rest of the world.
Even if they are more uncertain, the contamination and mortality figures are much lower than those for Europe and North America.
To understand this particular dynamic of the epidemic, researchers from the North and the South are working together.
Publicity
Read more
The WHO puts forward a figure of 77,000 deaths on the continent since the start of the epidemic, and even if the estimates of Johns
Hopkins University
are higher - around 112,000 deaths - it remains much lower than would be- what in France where we count almost 100,000 deaths.
A better armed population
The reasons for this relative weakness of the epidemic in Africa are due to a combination of factors: demography first, because in many countries, the over 65s represent about 3% of the population, while in Europe, we are rather above 25%.
With the population being on average younger, there are far fewer vulnerable people on the African continent, and although the virus has spread widely, people are less sick.
There may also be protection by antibodies acquired from infections with other coronaviruses.
On the other hand, the fact of having an immune system permanently stimulated by other infections makes it possible to defend oneself better, and in Europe, populations more “
protected
” against diseases are perhaps more deprived in the face of the disease. coronavirus.
Finally, an important factor: the countries' responses to the epidemic - closing borders, controlling populations - have proven to be effective.
Cooperative research
Several research programs are carried out in cooperation between the Institute for Research for Development (IRD) and research centers in six African countries: Ghana, Cameroon, Benin, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.
As part of
the Ariacov project
- funded by the French Development Agency - researchers from the Guinea Infectious Disease Research Center in Conakry, the Biomedical Research Institute in Kinshasa, the Research Center on Emerging Diseases in Yaoundé, of the
West African Center for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathologies
, in Ghana and the Institute of Health and Development of the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, in particular, are working together on diagnosis and screening, to understand how the virus spreads and its impact on populations: surveys are carried out in the population to find out how many people have been infected without knowing it.
After the first wave, around December, the contamination figures on the continent were significant: 10 to 15% of the population was positive, while in France, it was only between 4 and 5%.
In this context of strong dissemination of the virus, we see that its impact has remained limited, which confirms the notion of a young population, without a serious form of Covid-19.
►Also read: Covid-19: African researchers absent from the main medical journals
Specific reagents for more reliable tests
To test the serology of patients, the supply of reagents to identify the Covid-19 virus may have been complicated due to global pressure, but the IRD was able to provide them urgently to partner laboratories.
On the other hand, the reagents used in Africa are not necessarily the most suitable, because they have been developed and tested in the North, on patients who are not in contact with other coronaviruses present in Africa.
As a result, the IRD has developed tests based on work carried out on Ebola, to accurately detect whether a person has been infected with SARS-Cov 1, SARS-Cov 2 (Covid-19), MERS (Syndrome respiratory tract), winter coronaviruses or others from wildlife.
“
As part of Ariacov, IRD prepared these reagents on a massive scale and offered them to partner laboratories, so that they can make a differential diagnosis, find out whether a patient is actually infected with Sars-Cov 2 or another coronavirus, because we can have cross reactions, that is to say a positive test for Covid-19 when it is another coronavirus
”, declares Eric Delaporte, director of the
TRANSVIHMI unit
at IRD from Montpellier and specialist in infectious diseases.
Additional lines of research
As part of the approach
One Health
(
One Health
in French), research is conducted to anticipate the transmission of wildlife virus to humans, but also in the other direction, particularly in the context of the program
Ebo -Sursy
- CIRAD, IRD, Institut Pasteur -, to avoid seeing populations of great apes decimated by a virus transmitted by humans, as happened with common cold viruses in humans, which have decimated Ugandan chimpanzees in 2013 and 2016.
Knowing that, for the moment, no drug works against Covid-19, the WHO, with the
Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention
(
African Center for the control and prevention of diseases
in French), has put on very solid protocols for an objective evaluation of herbal remedies, especially on artemisinin and acacia gum.
As part of the
Ariacov
project
,
social science researchers are conducting surveys on the experiences of populations in confinement, on the social consequences of health measures and monitoring the appearance of false information, with the aim of providing political decision-makers with data. allowing them to make the best decisions against the epidemic.
Regarding the dynamics of the epidemic, the results of
Ariacov
on the 2nd wave will soon give a precise idea of its diffusion, a very useful data for the vaccine policies of the countries concerned, because we do not order the same number of vaccines depending on whether 'there is 10% or 30% of the population already naturally immunized.
►Also read: Covid-19: Nigeria says it is progressing on the development of its own vaccine
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Health and medicine
Coronavirus
Africa
our selection
On the same subject
Covid-19: Nigeria says it is progressing on the development of its own vaccine
Covid-19: African researchers absent from main medical journals