6 in 7 coronavirus cases in Africa are not being detected, WHO study suggests
CBC
Only one in seven COVID-19 infections in Africa are being detected, meaning the continent's estimated infection level may be 59 million people, according to a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO).
"With limited testing, we're still flying blind in far too many communities in Africa," said Matshidiso Moeti, regional director for the WHO in Africa, in a press briefing Thursday.
To get more accurate numbers of infections and to better curb transmission, the UN plans to increase rapid diagnostic testing in eight African countries with the goal of testing seven million people in the next year.
The initiative is a "radically" new approach that shifts from passive to active surveillance by working with communities, said Moeti. The rapid tests are affordable, reliable and easy to use and will provide results within 15 minutes, she said. An additional 360,000 cases are expected to be detected by using the tests, with approximately 75 per cent of them being asymptomatic or mild, she said.
The initiative will be based on what is called a ring strategy that has been used to eradicate smallpox and was implemented during Ebola outbreaks. The strategy targets people living within a 100-metre radius around new confirmed cases.
Health professionals welcomed the approach and said it will help the continent to get ahead of the pandemic rather than playing catch up. Since the start of the outbreak, Africa has recorded more than eight million COVID-19 cases and 214,000 deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rapid testing will also provide officials with data to help avoid overwhelming health systems and implementing restrictions that can be "disastrous as far as economic consequences," said Ngozi Erondu, senior scholar at Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute.
As Vladimir Putin and his large entourage touch down Thursday in Beijing for a two-day state visit, there were be plenty of public overtures about cooperation, but with China facing increasing pressure from the U.S. over its trade relationship with Russia, China's President Xi Jinping will have to figure out how far the country is willing to go to prop up what was once described as a "no-limits" partnership.
Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its military operation closer to the heavily populated central area, in defiance of growing pressure amid the war from close ally the United States and others.