IRC Worried over Covid-19 Spread, Reveals Numbers

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has raised concerns that the official numbers of reported cases of Covid-19 in Africa could be much lower than the actual numbers of people infected.

Confirmed Covid-19 cases across African countries have risen by 500 percent in the past two months and more than doubled in July, amidst dire testing shortfalls and poor access to data on the actual extent of the pandemic in crisis-affected countries in Africa.

Development Diaries observed that the reason for this development was lack of data due to a variety of factors, such as testing capacity, health infrastructure devastated by conflict, and stigma.

Meanwhile, the IRC is working to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in crisis-affected countries across the continent, but the organisation is calling for a major increase in funding and international support to increase testing and mitigate the spread of the contagion.

The Senior Technical Advisor of Emergency Health at the IRC, Stacey Mearns, said, ‘Where testing is insufficient, we are fighting this disease in the dark. The doubling of confirmed Covid-19 cases in July across African countries is alarming, but we are worried that this could be the tip of the iceberg.

‘For all the countries where we work in the region, testing rates fall far below the World Health Organisation guidelines. Without testing, there are indeed ‘no cases’, but this does not mean the virus is not spreading unchecked.

‘For example, in Somalia, 32 percent of those tested are positive – in contrast to 3 percent in Germany – indicating that a huge proportion of Covid-19 cases are going undetected, leaving the pandemic to spread freely’.

He also said, ‘The testing shortfalls make it nearly impossible to understand the extent of the pandemic – let alone put measures in place to stop it. Yet, other indicators show that the spread could be much worse than we know. For example, we are seeing increasing deaths due to acute respiratory syndromes in countries like South Sudan, and a higher percentage of healthcare workers becoming infected in places like Liberia (16 percent), Niger (16 percent) and Sierra Leone (15 percent), compared to just 3 percent in the US. This is evidence that the pandemic could be hitting harder than the numbers reveal’.

Source: International Rescue Committee

Photo source: Prachatai

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
WhatsApp

About the Author