In late 2019, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan City, Hubei Province in China causing a disastrous disease that has now spread in at least 213 countries. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern. The Ethiopian Ministry of Health activated its Public Health Emergency Operation Center (PHEOC) on January 27, 2020 under the Ethiopian Public Health Institute to respond to the pandemic.
In Ethiopia, the spread of the pandemic disease has become increasing from day to day. Although health professionals, various famous or influential public figures and government officials are attempting to create awareness to the general public, some peoples are not applying the instruction or the advice.
According to the Ministry of Health (MoH) and regional health bureaus’ recent report as of on Sunday, 7 June 2020, there have been 2,020 cases of COVID-19. Ethiopian Public Health Institute and Ministry of Health have jointly reported that a total of 147,735 tests were performed until the compilation of this article. Ethiopia now scaled up capacity to test 7,000 specimens per day at various Public Health laboratories and major hospitals. Currently, no commercial laboratory has reported performing the testing. The index case was confirmed on 13th March, 2020.
New cases of COVID-19 infection in just the past week has increased by 500 percent than it was during the 11 weeks of 2020 since Ethiopia recorded the first case. There was an average of 11 cases per day during those weeks but an average of 117 cases per day in the last week. In addition, 16 individuals’ deaths (60 percent of the overall death) were reported in this past week alone.
All regions have reported COVID-19 cases and the latest one being the Gambella Region that reported the first case on 6th of June, 2020. Till June 7, Addis Ababa constitutes 75 percent (1,515) of the cases followed by the Amara Region with percent (119) of the cases. Among of the infected people, 65 percent are male and 35 percent female.
In addition to policies and actions taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the Ethiopian parliament has declared a State of Emergency on 08 April, 2020 to enhance the federal government’s response to the pandemic. At that time, Tigray Region had already declared a regional State of Emergency on 26 March, 2020.
Although other regions had some type of emergency, the April 8th announcement from the Federal Government prompted the remaining regions to declare a full-blown
emergency, with most taking the form of a State of Emergency or a Public Health Emergency. However, some of the regions have since eased their restrictions after 10 April, 2020. Oromia, Harari, SNNP and Dire Dawa have relaxed their ban on public and cross-region transportation. Lockdown in the four towns in Amhara Region was also lifted as of 14 April, 2020.
Furthermore, State of Emergency article 4, sub article 6 that requires “Any person who is found at banks, marketplaces, transport depots, in public transit, shops, pharmacies, places where public services are provided or any other public space where a large
number of people are found is required to put on a cover on his nose and mouth.” The federal government has enforced wearing face masks in public as a mandatory on 27 May, 2020.
Positive cases include people with a positive COVID-19 test as reported by the Ministry of health and does not include presumptive positive case that have COVID-19 like symptoms and had close contact with a confirmed case but not tested. The number of new COVID-19 cases reported each day in Ethiopia since the beginning of the outbreak. The number of cases becomes a big spike after 5th of May. Prior that day, an average of 3 cases was recorded per day and after 5th May, the average cases per day was elevated to 53. The highest number of cases in a day was 169 on 5 June, 2020.
Overall view of the cases recovered and active cases were mirroring each other until 9th May. From 30th April to 9th May the number of recovered cases was higher than active cases which resulted in a dip the epidemiologic curve. Between 13th March and 10th April the doubling time was 5 days on average. The longest doubling time was 23 days which sustained for two days (May 4-5).
When compared to neighboring countries, Ethiopia still has the lowest cases and growth rate but with recent increased growth rate Ethiopia can soon surpass Kenya and Somalia because the pandemic has emerged at different times in different countries.
When the pandemic began most of the cases were from people who had a travel history. In other words, people who have tested and proved to be positive were only
among those entered to the country and this trend continued until 27th May. Community spread or transmission refers to people who have been infected with the virus in an area, including some who are not sure how or where they became infected. But currently community spread is dramatically increasing. Ethiopian Public Health Institute reported Private business owners, daily laborers, drivers, and prisoners make up the biggest portion of the overall confirmed cases.
Until the date this report was organized (13June) 3,166 individuals were infected by coronavirus and 55 individuals were reported dead. The number of cases and the hike in deaths is a strong indication that a lot have to be done to suppress the outbreak. Cases in regions other than Addis Ababa are also seeing a spike particularly Setit Humera and West Gondar require immediate intervention.
The Ministry of Health reported that the Millennium Hall field hospital is now under use which goes to show that the health system is already working over capacity and soon will be overwhelmed.
The capacity of testing is still very low for the size of the population. Health facilities and healthcare workforce is over stretched. This calls for an aggressive and stricter preventive measure for the health system to handle the surge of patients. It is critical to focus on public awareness and educating the population about the pandemic. Timely information and providing robust public service announcement is the foundation for cooperation and adherence to set preventive measures, learnt from MoH and regional health bureaus.
The Ethiopian Herald June 16, 2021
BY ESSEYE MENGISTE
