West Africa is experiencing its highest number of Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Africa said on Thursday.
It’s a worrying trend in a region also battling the Ebola and Marburg viruses.
Over the last month, deaths from Covid-19 across West Africa have nearly tripled, from 348 to 1 018 at the end of last week.
While the fatality rate is lower than the continental average – 1.4% compared to 2.5% – officials fear that health systems in the region are already under severe strain.
This relatively low fatality rate is still higher than previous waves – a sign that hospitals are struggling with a heavy caseload. A WHO assessment of the overall functionality of health systems in the region showed that West Africa’s healthcare systems were 21% lower than southern Africa’s – the region with the highest number of infections in Africa.
Overall, new infections in Africa have begun to slow, decreasing to 244 000 in the last week after a worrying surge.
Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Nigeria are all experiencing a surge in new infections. Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea are managing an outbreak of the Ebola virus, while Guinea became the first west African country to record a case of Marburg virus – a highly infectious hemorrhagic disease in the same family as Ebola.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said in a weekly briefing: “In addition to the strain of Covid-19, comes Ebola and other outbreaks. Fighting multiple outbreaks is a complex challenge.
Guinea detected a case of the virus on 9 August. While no new cases have been detected, medical officers identified 173 people who may have come in contact with the patient.”
Until now, the Marburg virus has been detected in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. The South African case was a sporadic one detected in a patient who traveled, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
The hemorrhagic virus is transmitted from fruit bats to humans via bodily fluids.
The Guinean case was discovered in the same region where the 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak was first detected. The Marburg case came less than two months after Guinea declared the end of an Ebola outbreak that began in February and killed 12 people.
The size of the outbreak was largely curbed due to the use of the vaccine and health protocols from the outbreak that killed 11 300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
The Ebola case in Cote d’Ivoire was the first of its kind in 25 years. The patient was diagnosed and hospitalized in the capital Abidjan, after travelling from neighboring Guinea.
By Wednesday, there was one confirmed case in Cote d’Ivoire and three suspected cases that later tested negative, while six high-risk contacts are in quarantine.
Ivorian health authorities have already started vaccinating the 49 people who came in contact with the patient, and are collaborating with health authorities in Guinea to identify further possible contacts, WHO Africa said.
“These new outbreaks are a clear reminder that other health emergencies are not taking a back seat just because we are busy battling a global pandemic,” said Moeti. “We must remain alert and quick to respond so that other dangerous diseases are denied the chance to spread and cause further devastation.”
