Rabat – While the rest of the world sees the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of COVID-19, a third wave of the virus is slamming the entire continent of Africa.
South Africa currently leads the continent with the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 1,877,143 followed by Morocco at 528,180, as of Friday.
However, the current health situation is entirely different between the two African countries.
South Africa has witnessed a 60% increase in hospitalizations since April 2021. Dr. Angelique Coetzee, Chief of South Africa’s Doctor Association stated, “the hospital system is not coping.”
The pandemic cases are resurging at an alarming rate in 12 countries, with the continental outbreak expected to reach a peak in approximately 3-weeks.
The success of a country’s vaccination campaign, paired with government lockdown measures, are crucial steps in combating the third wave of COVID-19. Morocco’s health situation is relatively stable as hospitals are not reaching maximum capacity and data suggests that daily confirmed cases are steadily dropping.
The World Health Organization (WHO) officials have praised Morocco’s response to the pandemic as the kingdom imposed a long-term complete lockdown in the early months of the pandemic, before maintaining a night curfew and closing its international borders.
Other African countries such as South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Uganda are recording their worst days since the pandemic’s start in March 2020.
Vaccination failure
As of June 24, Morocco has fully vaccinated 23.5% of its population, whereas South Africa has only fully vaccinated 0.81% of its population, according to Our World in Data.
Data from Our World in Data comparing Morocco and South Africa’s fully-vaccinated rates.
Dissimilar vaccination practices span across Africa. Africa’s three biggest countries, Namibia, Zambia, and Uganda, vaccinated 0.84%, .04%, and .01% of their populations, respectively.
Most African nations are members of the WHO’s COVAX program.
The WHO, alongside the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, have developed a program to aid in COVID-19 vaccine distribution to countries deemed “low income”, “lower middle income”, and “international development association (IDA) eligible.”
Despite billions of vaccine donations to African countries, many are beginning to face mass hospitalizations and rapidly expiring vaccines due to administrative imbalances.
In May 2021, the east African country of Malawi burned nearly 20,000 AstraZeneca vaccines that expired due to logistical failures. Now, the country is reporting vaccine shortages and has only fully vaccinated 384,406 people, accounting for approximately 0.02% of its population.
Hospitals in need
Hospitals in Uganda are running low on oxygen tanks and the country noted an increase in the hospitalization of young people.
Uganda’s Health Minister, Jane Ruth Acheng said that the new variants may be a cause for the most recent wave of COVID-19 in Africa, stating its “different from the second wave.”
Analysts have discovered the new Delta variant of the virus in 14 African countries. According to the WHO, the new variant hit Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo the hardest.
On June 10, US President Joe Biden announced that the US would purchase 500 million COVID-19 vaccines to donate to COVAX recipients.
Many critics have criticized global leaders such as the US, the UK, and Canada as the countries begin to return to normalcy while the nations of Africa prepare for the hardest days to come.
