BY MENGISTEAB TESHOME
The first case of COVID-19 in Africa was reported in Egypt on Feb 14, 2020, just 14 days after WHO had declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
In an act of continental solidarity and leadership, the African Union (AU) Commission, through the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), convened an emergency meeting of all ministers of health on Feb 22, 2020, to develop and endorse a Joint Continental Strategy for COVID-19 Outbreak.
Since February, 2020, Africa CDC has rolled out six additional pandemic response initiatives across the continent targeting surveillance and testing; medical supply availability; public health and social measures (PHSMs); safe travel, livelihoods, and economies; pathogen genomics; and vaccine development and supply.
In fact, to successfully and equitably inform the implementation of the continental strategy and all of the associated initiatives across the continent, it was important to understand the regional and AU Member State-specific infection and mortality rates, testing capacity, ability to implement mitigation measures, and overall pandemic effect. To this effect, Africa CDC has monitored the evolution of the pandemic across the globe since early January, 2020, through routine event-based surveillance. Within Africa, this information provided situational awareness and informed continental response efforts.
Despite the spread of COVID-19 to almost all countries in Africa within 3 months, country-reported case counts suggest that the pandemic has spread much slower on the continent than in the rest of the world. In actual fact, currently the spread of the pandemic is increasing alarmingly.
Ethiopia, since the first case was reported, has been working persistently and executing various mitigating activities to curb the spread of the virus. In line with this, it has been working aggressively to strengthen prevention activities, improve rapid detection, and implement a strong national COVID-19 deployment and vaccination plan.
Currently, the country has already started providing vaccines that were allocated by the COVAX Facility.
This week also a batch of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines, donated by the Chinese government to Ethiopia, arrived in Ethiopia.
The doses were received at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport by Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Zhao Zhiyuan, Ethiopia Minister of Health, Lia Tadesse and Birtukan Ayano, State Minister of Ethiopia Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“China is the first to provide Ethiopia with vaccine aid through the bilateral inter-governmental channel, which speaks volumes of the profound traditional friendship between the two countries,” Zhao told reporters.
The Chinese government has been donating vaccines to dozens of countries, as part of its solidarity in the fight against the pandemic Zhao also added.
“China has donated and is donating vaccines to 80 developing countries in urgent need, and has provided support under COVAX for emergency use of vaccines in developing countries.”
COVAX, an international vaccine campaign co-led by the World Health Organization and its partners, aims to speed up the development, production and fair distribution of new COVID-19 vaccines.
Lia Tadesse, Ethiopia Minister of Health also commended the latest Chinese COVID-19 donation as a testament to the solid bilateral ties between the two countries.
“Since the onset of the pandemic in the past one year, the collaboration and partnership between these two countries has really been immense, and the support of both the government of China as well as organizations, private foundations and other organizations in China have been extending their support in the fight against the pandemic to Ethiopia,” she told reporters.
“Several donations of supplies like Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs), test kits, and medical equipment have been delivered. In addition, technical support and missions have been here to share experiences in how best to combat this challenging pandemic.”
“Today’s donation of these vaccines will have an immense contribution to this effort of the objective that we have in terms of inoculating at least up to 20 percent of the population within this year of 2021,” she said.
China has been helping Ethiopia in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic since its outbreak in the African country last year.
China donated several batches of medical supplies to Ethiopia last year, and a Chinese team of medical experts has been sent to Ethiopia to support its fight against the pandemic.
Ethiopia has recorded 204,521 COVID-19 cases and 2,841 COVID-19 related deaths by Tuesday evening. 156,625 patients also recovered from the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia, with the aim to avert the spread of the pandemic, has announced a legal directive to impose up to three years of imprisonment on those who fail to adhere to COVID-19 health precautions.
As FBC reported mentioning the Federal Attorney General Office (FAGO), the failure to wear facemasks in public, as well as not abide by other COVID-19 health precautions by the public, businesses and other institutions, could cost people up to three years in jail,
Under the new rules, public gathering of more than 50 people is banned as part of measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The Ethiopian Herald April 1/2021
