Nigeria is one of the nations starting to ease restrictions
ABUJA, May 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A number of countries in Africa are beginning to ease lockdown restrictions.
In Nigeria, businesses have reopened to try to restart the continent’s largest economy.
Rwanda has loosened restrictions after 45 days of lockdown, even though a nationwide night-time curfew will be enforced and movement in and out of the capital, Kigali, is prohibited.
In South Africa people have been allowed to return to work but must continue to observe distancing, the wearing of masks and washing hands.
In Kenya, the health ministry has recorded a low turnout in its mass testing campaign after encountering unwillingness among members of the public.
In Tanzania, videos of night burials have been circulating on social media causing some to call into question the government’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which co-ordinates pandemic responses across the continent, says there is a large gap in testing rates between nations.
Some of Africa’s smaller nations have achieved significantly better rates of testing than their larger neighbours.
Mauritius and Djibouti, for example, have both achieved high rates of testing per capita.
Ghana has also been praised for its level of testing, which its government says will help contain the spread of the virus once the lockdown is lifted.
South Africa has also pursued a relatively aggressive testing strategy and has so far managed over 200,000 tests. But this is way behind the numbers in countries like South Korea, Italy and Germany.
There are concerns that Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, is not testing nearly enough – although the government insists it’s focusing on “clusters” of positive cases.
Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control currently has 18 testing laboratories which can process tests that tell you if you have the disease. But it has put out an urgent plea for essential testing equipment.
It’s worth adding that there are some countries on the continent where testing data is not available, such as Eritrea and Algeria.
Some don’t have testing capacity, while others for various reasons won’t give out data.
For example, President Magufuli of Tanzania has said releasing such data creates fear. His country has only released information intermittently, sometimes just giving out the numbers of people who have recovered from the virus.
Getting hold of the chemical reagents needed to process tests can be difficult, as African countries don’t produce their own and need to compete for limited global supplies.
John Nkengasong of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control says “the collapse of global co-operation and a failure of international solidarity has shoved Africa out of the diagnostics market”.
He says African countries might have funds, but “70 countries imposing restrictions on exports of medical materials” has made it difficult to buy necessary goods.
There are also other barriers to increasing testing, including the lockdown measures to restrict movement, which can make it difficult for people to get to test sites.
Kenya has also admitted to facing challenges in getting testing kits, swabs and reagents, and its overall testing figure has fallen recently as a result.
The head of one of Kenya’s regional governments said recently that there were only 5,000 testing kits in the country, and that they were expecting 24,000 more.
The African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control have launched an initiative, the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT), which focuses on tracking, testing and tracing. — NNN-AGENCIES