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		</div><p>African is facing an <em>“existential threat”</em> as some countries will have more than 10,000 coronavirus cases by the end of April, a health expert has warned.</p>
<p>While cases across Africa are now above 6,000 at what has been called the dawn of the outbreak, the continent is <em>“very, very close”</em> to where Europe was after a 40-day period, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr John Nkengasong, told reporters.</p>
<p>The virus <em>“is an existential threat to our continent”,</em> he said.</p>
<p>Local transmission has begun in many countries. Just five of Africa’s 54 nations have not reported cases but Mr Nkengasong said it is just a matter of time until they get the virus.</p>
<p>He said authorities are <em>“aggressively”</em> looking into procuring equipment such as ventilators that most African countries desperately need, and local manufacturing and re-purposing are being explored.</p>
<p><em>“We’ve seen a lot of goodwill expressed to supporting Africa from bilateral and multilateral partners,” but “we still have to see that translate into concrete action”</em>, he said.</p>
<p>The World Health Organisation does not know how many ventilators are available across Africa to help those in respiratory distress, regional director Dr Matshidiso Moeti told reporters. <em>“We are trying to find out this information from country-based colleagues. … What we can say without a doubt is there is an enormous gap.”</em></p>
<p>Some countries have only a few ventilators. The Central African Republic has just three.</p>
<p>A small percentage of people who are infected will need ventilators and about 15% may need intensive care, said WHO official Dr Zabulon Yoti.</p>
<p>The health officials pleaded for global solidarity at a time when even some of the world’s richest countries are scrambling for basic medical needs, including face masks.</p>
<p><em>“Countries like Cameroon just reached out yesterday, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, asking, ‘Look, we need tents because we’re running out of hospital beds already,’”</em> Mr Nkengasong said.</p>
<p>Even if equipment is obtained, getting them to countries is a growing challenge with Africa’s widespread travel restrictions, though countries have made exceptions for cargo or emergency humanitarian flights.</p>
<p>Simply gauging the number of coronavirus cases in Africa is a challenge, even in South Africa, the most developed country on the continent, where authorities have acknowledged a testing backlog.</p>
<p>Other countries suffer from the widespread shortage of testing kits or swabs, though 43 countries in the WHO Africa sub-Saharan region now have testing capability, up from two in early February.</p>
<p>As more African countries impose lockdowns, both the WHO and Africa CDC expressed concern for the millions of low-income people who need to go out daily to earn their living. That’s a <em>“huge challenge”</em>, Mr Moeti said, noting that hundreds of thousands of children are now out of school as well.</p>
<p>It is too soon to tell how the lockdown in places like South Africa has affected the number of cases, she added.</p>
<p><em>“Don’t lock down the whole country,”</em> Mr Nkengasong said. <em>“Lock down cities or communities where there’s extensive community transmission so… social harm is minimised. But if infection is spreading across the entire country, you have no choice.”</em></p>
<p>Health experts in Africa are rushing to understand whether factors such as Africa’s youthful population — some 70% of the continent’s people are under age 30 — will be a benefit in fighting off the virus and how the widespread problems of malnutrition, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria might affect people’s ability to fight off infection.</p>
<p><em>“Our greatest fear”</em> is that programmes tackling those perennial issues will be sapped by the current crisis, Mr Nkengasong said. <em>“The time to advocate for those programmes is not when Covid is over. The time is now.”</em></p>
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