Original title: Africa’s new crown case fatality rate is still the highest in the world, only 10% of the population has been vaccinated
On January 20, local time, the WHO Regional Office for Africa held an online press conference in Brazzaville, the capital of Congo (Brazzaville). According to the content of the press conference, the number of newly confirmed cases and the number of new deaths on the African continent in the past week have both dropped significantly, by 20% and 8% respectively. The case fatality rate of new crown patients has dropped from more than 2.4% in the first three outbreaks to about 0.68%, but it is still the highest in the world.
According to the World Health Organization, 36 countries on the African continent have detected the Omicron variant, while 169 countries around the world have detected the variant. As of January 16, the African continent has accumulated more than 10.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 233,000 deaths. Although the surge and decline of cases in this round of the epidemic have been very rapid, and the new crown death rate and hospitalization rate on the African continent are also lower than before, the difficult epidemic situation in Africa is far from being reversed.
Moti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, said that at present, vaccination is still the most effective way to prevent the new crown, and at the same time, it must be combined with other epidemic prevention measures, such as wearing masks correctly and washing hands frequently. Morti said that as long as the virus continues to spread, a new wave of epidemic peaks is inevitable. Not only does Africa need to increase vaccination rates, it also needs equitable access to treatment options for Covid-19 to save more lives and effectively fight the outbreak.
Intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients in Africa have increased from 0.8 per 100,000 to 2 per 100,000, but the figure is still far from enough to deal with the outbreak. Due to the limited supply and high cost of some new crown medicines, African countries also face great difficulties in obtaining these medicines. Moti pointed out that rapid diagnosis, vaccines and specific drug treatment will be the shortcuts to end the new crown epidemic, and the distribution of drugs should not repeat the inequality of the distribution of new crown vaccines. Furthermore, although vaccine availability in Africa has been increasing in recent months, vaccination rates remain low, with only 10% of the African population having completed the vaccination. (Headquarters reporter Bai Jie)