CDC Recommends Kenya’s COVID-19 Fight Model To Africa

The Africa Center for Disease Control (Africa CDC) Director Dr. John Nkengasong has said that the Covid-19 situation in Kenya is normal with epidemics.

Speaking on the weekly briefing, Dr. Nkengasong said that the rise in infections happens whenever restrictions are lifted or when the epidemic appears to have been contained adding that stringent restrictions are counterproductive to economic activity.

“Countries cannot perennially be under lockdown or strict restrictions, because this hurts the economy,” said Nkengasong and added that, “the rise in infections is the result of the lifting of restrictions and the thought that the pandemic was over when the second wave ended within a short time.”

While noting that Kenya had done exceptionally well in flattening the curve twice, Dr. Nkengasong advised that instead the Kenya government and governments around the continent need to scale up the vaccination exercise to help achieve the herd immunity and save more lives.

He called on members states to make policy decisions pertaining to vaccination roll-out based on evidence and thorough regulatory review process warning that the whole continent is not yet out of the woods and that countries must maintain high standards in ensuring that the health protocols are adhered to, including washing hands with soap and water, keeping social and physical distancing as well as wearing facemasks.

The Africa CDC Director said that over the past week Africa had recorded a total of 66,764 new cases indicating a 3% decrease from the previous week, but warned that East Africa and Northern Africa had recorded the highest proportion of new cases at 28% each.

The Southern region recorded 25%, the Western region 15% and the Central region 3%. Kenya leads with a 44% average increase in new cases, Ethiopia: 19%, Egypt 2% average increase while the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen a decrease in infections of 11%, South Africa has registered a 14% average decrease and Nigeria a 23% average decrease.

In the report released by Dr. NKengasong, new deaths on the continent in the past week are 2,029.

Five countries on the continent recorded the highest numbers of new cases in the week; Ethiopia 9,329, South Africa 8,352, Libya 5,335, Egypt 4,421 and Kenya 4,409.

So far total cases due to Covid-19 in Africa have reached 4,062,388 which is 3.4% of total cases reported globally.

Total recoveries are 3,649,317 accounting for 90% of the total cases reported in Africa. While the total number of deaths are 108,659 which is a case fatality rate of 2.7%.