by Joanne Chukwueke

Since its detection in Wuhan at the end of last year, the novel coronavirus called COVID-19 has claimed more than 2,500 lives and has infected over 80,000 people across forty-seven countries (at the time of publication). Of those countries with confirmed cases, only two are in Africa: Egypt confirmed the continent’s first case on February 14, 2020, while Algeria confirmed its own on February 25. By now, at least 25 other African countries have alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) of suspected cases, but all are either pending or have resulted in negative tests – a remarkable fact, considering the strong integration between the African and Chinese markets. Given the alarming rate at which COVID-19 is spreading, it was always only a matter of time until the pandemic reached Africa. Now that it has, how prepared are African governments to contain it? Continue reading…