Covid-19: Vulnerable populations and refugees the focus of WHO Africa

During the World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa’s most recent online press briefing Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti discussed the impact the pandemic was having on citizens of various African Nations.

The discussion, with various stakeholders of the international community, focussed on the pandemic’s impact on people living in very challenging and difficult settings, and the need to improve access to essential services, including those for Covid-19.

“Sub-Saharan Africa hosts more than 26 per cent of the world’s refugees and around 19 million internally displaced people who have fled their homes due to violence and conflict. During this time, these are among the most vulnerable people in the world to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Due to challenges in accessing humanitarian settings, cases of Covid-19 are possibly underreported and public health capacities for surveillance, testing, isolation, care and contact tracing, are being scaled-up wherever it’s possible.”

Hon Dr. Pierre Somse, Minister of Health and Population for the Central Africa Republic, discussed the difficulties of maintaining social distancing measures when easily regulated amenities such as supermarkets are uncommon. @WHOAFRO

— World Economic Forum (@wef) July 16, 2020

“In Ethiopia, for instance, community engagement, including surveillance, infection prevention and control activities, is ongoing in all refugee camps and sites where internally displaced people are living,” said Moeti.

“In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, laboratories are equipped to diagnose Covid-19, building on capacities strengthened during the Ebola response.”

Also read: World Health Organisation calls for strict Covid-19 safety measures as African countries resume air travel

While addressing the media Moeti mentioned that the DRC’s government and partners are also dealing with an Ebola outbreak while responding to Covid-19.

“There are 56 cases and this is of great concern, particularly as it is now surpassing the 2018 outbreak in this area which was closed off and controlled at a total of 54 cases.”

Moeti said some cases are located in remote areas surrounded by rainforests, demanding additional resources for the response.

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More: https://t.co/4odGgqxAKP#COVID19 #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/yXFCgPxa6d

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) July 16, 2020

She highlighted that this illustrates the fact that countries have to deal with other health problems, including responding to other epidemics while responding to Covid-19.

“Returning to humanitarian settings, in crowded and sometimes very-low-resource settings, like camps and settlements, basic preventive measures for Covid-19 such as social distancing and frequent hand hygiene can be incredibly challenging to implement.”

Over 625,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent – with more than 316,000 recoveries & 13,000 deaths. View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/V0fkK8dYTg pic.twitter.com/5B3yOSs0My

— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) July 15, 2020

Recommendations made by the WHO include the screening of new arrivals, creating temporary isolation facilities for suspected cases, adapting activities like food distribution to limit gatherings, strengthening infection prevention and control practices (including ensuring access to water supplies and handwashing stations), and ensuring essential health services for other diseases and conditions continue to be provided.

“This week, the United Nations will launch an update to the Global Humanitarian Response Plan to scale-up access to life-essential services for health, water and sanitation, and food and nutrition for vulnerable populations,” said Moeti.

Also read: African countries among innovation leaders in the fight against Covid-19

“This action is urgently needed, already funding shortages have resulted in reduced food rations in some settlements and imminent threats of increases in acute malnutrition, stunting and anaemia.”

As the reported Covid-19 cases on the African continent passes 640,000 and 14,000 people have lost their lives.
Moeti said global solidarity is needed more than ever in fighting this epidemic.

“We [the WHO] are seeing many governments ease the lockdown measures that had been put in place and bought some time in scaling-up the public health capacities so we should be expecting that in some countries there will be an increase in cases.”

“We will all have to work together to then control what happens as far as those increases are concerned. For at least three months, vulnerable communities have been experiencing socio-economic difficulties exacerbated by Covid-19.”

Also read: South Africa accounts for 29% of Africa’s Covid-19 cases

“It is in the interests of peace, international security and equity that all countries and partners do more to assist the innocent civilians affected by the violence and conflict.”

Moeti called on all parties to implement the UN Security Council’s resolution on Covid-19, focusing on our common enemy, the virus and ceasing hostilities.

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