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As rich nations struggle, Africa’s virus response is praised

SilentPanda

SilentPanda

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Nov 6, 2017
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The coronavirus pandemic has fractured global relationships. But as director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nkengasong has helped to steer Africa's 54 countries into an alliance praised as responding better than some richer countries, including the United States.

A former U.S. CDC official, he modeled Africa's version after his ex-employer. Nkengasong is pained to see the U.S. agency struggle. In an interview with The Associated Press, he didn't name U.S President Donald Trump but cited "factors we all know."
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While the U.S. nears 200,000 COVID-19 deaths and the world approaches 1 million, Africa's surge has been leveling off. Its 1.4 million confirmed cases are far from the horrors predicted. Antibody testing is expected to show many more infections, but most cases are asymptomatic. Just over 33,000 deaths are confirmed on the continent of 1.3 billion people.

"Africa is doing a lot of things right the rest of the world isn't," said Gayle Smith, a former administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development. She's watched in astonishment as Washington looks inward instead of leading the world. But Africa "is a great story and one that needs to be told."
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Nkengasong urges African countries not to wait for help and rejects the image of the continent holding a begging bowl. The money is there, he said.

Acting on that idea, Africa's public and private sectors created an online purchasing platform to focus their negotiating power, launched by the African Union to buy directly from manufacturers. Governments can browse and buy rapid testing kits, N95 masks and ventilators, some now manufactured in Africa in another campaign endorsed by heads of state.
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"I look at Africa and I look at the U.S., and I'm more optimistic about Africa, to be honest, because of the leadership there and doing their best despite limited resources," said Sema Sgaier, director of the Surgo Foundation, which produced a COVID-19 vulnerability index for each region. She spoke even as Africa's cases were surging weeks ago.
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chinapost.nownews.com

As rich nations struggle, Africa's virus response is praised | The China Post, Taiwan

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At a lecture to peers this month, John Nkengasong showed images that once dogged Africa, with a magazine cover declaring it “The Hopeless Continent.” Then he quoted Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah: “It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and...
chinapost.nownews.com chinapost.nownews.com
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

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Oct 28, 2017
12,401
And who is the shithole?....


They still have some areas that need major improvement but what they got done just demonstrates further how incompetent our leadership has been and I'm not including the CDC for obvious reasons.
 
Haunted

Haunted

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Nov 3, 2017
2,737
This is actually quite uplifting news. Many countries in Africa have indeed (according to the reported numbers and reports from the ground) dealt with this pandemic better than anticipated/feared so far. It's still not over, of course, but this is encouraging.

The part about the comparison to the US is pretty amazing, though. I mean,

"I look at Africa and I look at the U.S., and I'm more optimistic about Africa, to be honest, because of the leadership there and doing their best despite limited resources"
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damn.

*insert something about karma and shithole countries here*
 
darkwing

darkwing

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Oct 25, 2017
14,949
well, I'm in a developing country in Asia, but we are doing better than EU/NA , in fact we only have single digits in new cases in our city

but face masks are mandatory, and face shields mandatory in indoor places
 
Naijaboy

Naijaboy

The Fallen
Mar 13, 2018
15,253
Not having people protesting the lockdown goes a long way.

Having mercurial political parties works out for once.
 
G.O.O.

G.O.O.

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Oct 26, 2017
3,089
A few months ago I've read an economist expecting African countries to perform well on that front, because of health structures that already know how to react to virus outbreaks.
 
gozu

gozu

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Oct 27, 2017
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So Africa, which has 0 central government (and not all countries are members of the AU) has been able to fare between 4 and 16 times better than the USA?

Wow, the USA's leader must truly be the worst ever. That is a level of incompetence that goes beyond criminal.
 
gozu

gozu

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G.O.O. said:
A few months ago I've read an economist expecting African countries to perform well on that front, because of health structures that already know how to react to virus outbreaks.
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I have difficulty believing this. Do they say how many of the 55 African countries have had to react to virus outbreaks in the past?
 
Combo

Combo

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Jan 8, 2019
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I wonder if better general health has made a difference. E.g. less obesity, asthma etc
 
Huncho_Houdini

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Dec 31, 2017
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I think leadership in "Africa" (because well, there are a shit ton of very different countries there) may emphasize things that seems more rational than the leadership in the USA (because there is none here), and their prior experience with outbreaks is definitely helpful, however just looking at the numbers, there is barely any testing there in comparison to industrialized nations, even in some of the countries with more developed medical infrastructures.

Kenya is an example for a country with relatively better medical infrastructure, and they have carried out a total of 506,632 tests. The USA has done almost 100 million. Per million residents that's ~10,000 vs. 300,000. In South Africa there have been 4 million total tests conducted. I think it's misleading to draw any conclusions at the moment with regards to virus spread and effect. By the end of the pandemic we will be better able to analyze which factors played what role. Undeniably any semblance of normal leadership can make a big difference.

(Worldometer numbers) https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ if you click the africa tab.
 
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xenocide

xenocide

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Oct 25, 2017
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Combo said:
I wonder if better general health has made a difference. E.g. less obesity, asthma etc
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It definitely helps, but also Africa has experience with pandemics (Ebola, West Nile, Zika, etc.), and a population that doesn't see inconveniences to their day to day life that protect the community at large as an affront to their freedoms. So far as I know, many countries have well developed protocols and government agencies that work year round and have for years to combat the spread of infectious diseases.
 
Chopchop

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's good news. I wonder how much of it is because the general population has dealt with pandemics before and understands their severity? The concept of getting sick and dying is very real in less developed countries, whereas in more developed countries it seems harder for the people to understand because it doesn't happen as often. In more developed countries, plenty of people seem to think that they can't die from something that they can catch, and whine when asked to take precautions.
 
Frieza

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Oct 25, 2017
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gozu said:
So Africa, which has 0 central government (and not all countries are members of the AU) has been able to fare between 4 and 16 times better than the USA?

Wow, the USA's leader must truly be the worst ever. That is a level of incompetence that goes beyond criminal.
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Can you explain what you mean by this?
 
gozu

gozu

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Frieza said:
Can you explain what you mean by this?
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I just made some quick and dirty assumptions.

Reported deaths are 33,000 for all of africa. I increase that number by 50% since there are no doubt many unreported deaths which gives us 50k deaths, or roughly one quarter of the US. This already means absolute number of deaths is 1/4 of the us, so it's doing "4 times better"

Africa's population is nearly quadruple that of the US, so this means it's actually doing 4 x 4 times "better" than the US per capita . so let's say 16 times worse if "only" 17000 death went unreported as I assumed.

And then, I went ahead and for my minimum, I assume that the number of unreported deaths in africa is actually 150,000 (80% of deaths went unreported) to be extra sure.
 
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Neo C.

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Nov 9, 2017
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They have dealt with far worse diseases, they are not entitled and they actually follow the science. I can totally see why they are doing better than we have been doing.
 
nelsonroyale

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Oct 28, 2017
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Considering countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Congo, etc., have to deal with infectious diseases with much higher consequence, and have organisations such as Medicines Sans Frontiers more engaged with their health systems, it is not surprising. Uganda for instance seems to have a much lower case load than say the UK. They are also still less urbanised, and more locally resilient. Of course health infrastructure is mostly worse than in Europe say.
 
julian

julian

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Oct 27, 2017
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But they don't even have watches on those shithole countries!

....more seriously, glad to hear some countries are doing well.
 
PanickyFool

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Sorry...


Can't not post this.

Edit: as others pointed out I completely inappropriately posted black face. Honestly did not make the association and only a childhood memory of that flash game.

Sorry

I would not be surprised it's under reported, but still seem to be handling it much better.
 
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Necropolitik

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Sep 11, 2020
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I hate the way these articles are written, as if Africa was by default supposed to be worse off than Europe or North America, especially when it came to a problem that money couldn't solve.
 
PeskyToaster

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Oct 27, 2017
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It's obvious what the difference is. It's about strong leadership and an organized response to the facts of the situation. No amount of money can save you if you can't get it where it needs to go.

PanickyFool said:
Sorry...

Can't not post this.

I would not be surprised it's under reported, but still seem to be handling it much better.
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Why exactly can we "not post this"?
 
iksenpets

iksenpets

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Oct 26, 2017
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Africa's much more recent history with handling major infectious disease crises helps a lot. East Asia seems to have gotten a similar boost to their response from institutional knowledge of SARS. The West has really been spared this sort of thing for practically a century now, and it left us just completely unprepared to deal with it, both institutionally and just culturally, with people not taking it seriously
 

Deleted member 69501

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Hmmm as someone who has several family members living in Africa...I do question the response of their local government. I do hope the information that the report is based on is accurate because that's were I see the greatest challenge occuring.

Consider me a hopeful sceptic
 
Apathy

Apathy

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Oct 25, 2017
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Having good leadership that care and that have experience dealing with pandemics and crucially listening to science and learning from their other fights with diseases is what has made them a success with covid.
 
Huncho_Houdini

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Dec 31, 2017
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PeskyToaster said:
It's obvious what the difference is. It's about strong leadership and an organized response to the facts of the situation. No amount of money can save you if you can't get it where it needs to go.
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I don't think that's the "obvious difference." With the caveat that Trump's response is bottom 3 on the planet and while individual governments can and have shown better leadership than other countries, I think the severe lack of testing relative to industrial nations paints a more obvious picture.

With regards to death statistics, I'm not sure what is at play. Could be lack of reporting + younger population + better local response. But again, there are clearly multiple ongoing factors. Which is why I don't understand why we're even lumping "Africa" as one big conglomerate when the medical infrastructure and governmental responses vary greatly between nations.


This was published in August regarding antibody levels in various cities in Kenya and other countries in Africa, summarizing results from various studies. Seems to be that the antibody prevalence is much higher compared to the official numbers, which makes the low official death rate a little bizarre and maybe inaccurate.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...-so-far-scientists-are-struggling-explain-why
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

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Neo C. said:
They have dealt with far worse diseases, they are not entitled and they actually follow the science. I can totally see why they are doing better than we have been doing.
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But they have organization challenges of their own.

Very few countries have actual political and economic alliances.

Many counties have at minimum 3 commonly spoken languages.

Logistics infrastructure has holes outside of ports.

They had unique disadvantages they successfully took seriously.
 
Neo C.

Neo C.

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Nov 9, 2017
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mutantmagnet said:
But they have organization challenges of their own.

Very few countries have actual political and economic alliances.

Many counties have at minimum 3 commonly spoken languages.

Logistics infrastructure has holes outside of ports.

They had unique disadvantages they successfully took seriously.
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I know, it's very impressive. It just shows how much someone can succeed when they take things seriously while stay humble. We in the west are too arrogant, even the more successful countries are getting hit again.
 
PanickyFool

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Afrikan

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xenocide said:
It definitely helps, but also Africa has experience with pandemics (Ebola, West Nile, Zika, etc.), and a population that doesn't see inconveniences to their day to day life that protect the community at large as an affront to their freedoms. So far as I know, many countries have well developed protocols and government agencies that work year round and have for years to combat the spread of infectious diseases.
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This is a big part of the reason, imo.
 
Monkey Gland Sauce

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mutantmagnet said:
But they have organization challenges of their own.

Very few countries have actual political and economic alliances.

Many counties have at minimum 3 commonly spoken languages.

Logistics infrastructure has holes outside of ports.

They had unique disadvantages they successfully took seriously.
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People also forget just how big Africa is, or never knew in the first place due to how maps distort the size of the continents.

jyptbwj.jpg
 
OP
OP
SilentPanda

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Nov 6, 2017
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Africa has defied the covid-19 nightmare scenarios. We shouldn't be surprised.

News reports and opinion articles have posited that corruption and a lack of health-care infrastructure meant that Africa was a "time bomb" waiting to explode. Rampant poverty and a lack of effective governance would cause the dark continent to fall apart under the weight of a public health emergency. The world, the experts said, should prepare to offer aid, loans and debt forgiveness to African governments — in other words, they should prepare to save Africa.
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As the United States approaches 200,000 deaths, the West seems largely blind to Africa's successes. In recent weeks, headline writers seem to be doing their hardest to try to reconcile Western stereotypes about Africa with the reality of the low death rates on the continent. The BBC came under fire for a since-changed headline and a tweet that read "Coronavirus in Africa: Could poverty explain mystery of low death rate?" The New York Post published an article with the headline, "Scientists can't explain puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa."
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It's almost as if they are disappointed that Africans aren't dying en masse and countries are not collapsing. While Black Americans have been disproportionately contracting covid-19 and dying, Africa's performance shows, as I quoted a Kenyan anthropologist saying in May, "being a black person in this world doesn't kill you, but being a black person in America clearly can."
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Instead, the media has largely ignored the policy successes out of Africa. In doing so, Western media is reinforcing colonial narratives of Black inferiority and the inability of Black nations to govern themselves at all, much less govern better than resource-rich White nations.
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Micael

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While I hope the continent is doing well, and there is a very good chance they are doing better proportionately to the resources they have than many other places, it seems a bit disingenuous to comment on it based on numbers that just aren't reliable indicators when compared to developed nations, the entire continent of 1200 million has conducted 13 million tests, Germany for a population of 83 million has conducted 15 million tests, and when one looks at a country by country base things don't get particularly better, since for example South Africa seems to rank 97 on tests per 1 million people https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
So one can safely say the number of cases is not a reliable metric when it comes to the African continent.

Then we have deaths which unfortunately are going to end up running into similar issues or reporting accuracy, although this is a place where one would very much expect them to do better, if we look at the average population age https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/ we get 19.7 years, in comparison West Europe https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/western-europe-population/ has an average age of 43,9, on a decease whose mortality rate increases with age in a considerable way. So even if reporting here was accurate, it doesn't speak so much to the response as to the general realities of the continent, this is before we go into factors like population density which is certainly going to be massively smaller in Africa as a whole, but ofc are extremely dependent on a country by country and city by city basis.
 
PersonAndStuff

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SilentPanda said:
chinapost.nownews.com

As rich nations struggle, Africa's virus response is praised | The China Post, Taiwan

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At a lecture to peers this month, John Nkengasong showed images that once dogged Africa, with a magazine cover declaring it “The Hopeless Continent.” Then he quoted Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah: “It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and...
chinapost.nownews.com chinapost.nownews.com
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I looked into it and didn't realize there was an African Union. Good work AU.
 
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