The low COVID-19 cases and deaths record of African countries, which contradicts prediction, is baffling American billionaire businessman cum philanthropist, Bill Gates, who has openly express his wonder.
Specifically, the co-founder of Microsoft and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has said he does not understand why the rampaging coronavirus, which has inflicted an unpredictably high damage with huge records of cases and deaths in Europe and America, has done low damage in Africa.
He said the world still does not have enough data to understand why COVID-19 numbers have not been high in Africa.
However, the multi billionaire businessman who invests heavily in healthcare in Africa said he is happy to have been wrong about his predicted COVID-19 rates in Africa.
He had warned early 2020 that Africa could be the worse hit by COVID-19, stating at a conference that the virus would overwhelm health systems in the world’s poorest continent. But this has not been the case and the world does not understand why.
His words: “We don’t have enough data yet to understand why the numbers aren’t as high as I worried they would get. It helped that some countries locked down early. In Africa, another reason may be that the population is young compared with the rest of the world’s, and young people are less susceptible to the virus.
“Why does it rank so low in Africa? It’s not just the relatively low incidence of COVID-19 there. It’s also because shifting health workers to focus on the coronavirus disrupted efforts to detect and treat HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases. As a result, COVID-19 stayed low on the list of health threats, but other problems came roaring back”.
Gates and his wife, Melinda, had in more than one occasion, warned that there would be dead bodies all over the streets of Africa if the world does not act fast enough.
Melinda said her heart was in Africa, adding that she was worried that the continent might not be able to handle the devastating effect of the virus.
But in his end of the year note, Bill said he was happy his prediction about Africa has not happened.
According to him: “One thing I’m happy to have been wrong about—at least, I hope I was wrong—is my fear that Covid-19 would run rampant in low-income countries. So far, this hasn’t been true,” he wrote.
In most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, case and death rates remain much lower than in the U.S. or Europe and on par with New Zealand, which has received so much attention for its handling of the virus.
“The hardest-hit country on the continent is South Africa—but even there, the case rate is 40 percent lower than in the US, and the death rate is nearly 50 percent lower.
“We don’t have enough data yet to understand why the numbers aren’t as high as I worried they would get — but gave probable reasons Africa was not as affected as expected.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria is currently fighting the second wave of the coronavirus.
The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 had last week announced a second wave of the dreaded virus.
The Federal Government on Tuesday directed civil servants from grade level 12 and below to stay at home.
They are to remain at home for five weeks following the second wave of the Covid-19 disease in Nigeria.
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Friday stated that Covid-19 related deaths now stand at 1,246.
Nigeria currently has a total of 82,747 confirmed cases in the country.
With agency reports
