Tuesday, 26 March 2024
    21
    Apr

    300,000 Africans expected to die

    The COVID-19 pandemic will likely kill at least 300,000 Africans and risks pushing 29 million into extreme poverty, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said on Friday, calling for a $100 billion safety net for the continent, Reuters reports.

    Africa’s 54 countries have so far reported fewer than 20,000 confirmed cases of the disease, just a fraction of the more than two million cases reported globally. But the World Health Organization warned on Thursday that Africa could see as many as 10 million cases in three to six months.

    “To protect and build towards our shared prosperity at least $100 billion is needed to immediately resource a health and social safety net response,” the UNECA report stated.

    UNECA is also backing a call by African finance ministers for an additional $100 billion in stimulus, which would include a halt to all external debt service.

    In the total absence of such interventions, the study calculated over 1.2 billion Africans would be infected and 3.3 million would die this year. Africa has a total population of around 1.3 billion.

    Most of Africa, however, has already mandated social distancing measures, ranging from curfews and travel guidelines in some countries to full lockdowns in others.

    Yet even its best-case scenario, where governments introduce intense social distancing once a threshold of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people per week is reached, Africa would see 122.8 million infections, 2.3 million hospitalisations and 300,000 deaths.

    Meanwhile, aid charity Oxfam has warned that the coronavirus pandemic could push an additional half a billion people into poverty, demanding that world leaders contain the economic fallout and cancel $1 trillion of developing countries’ debt payments in 2020.

    FULL STORY

    At least 300,000 Africans expected to die in pandemic: U.N. agency (Reuters)

    Coronavirus could push half a billion people into poverty: Oxfam (Al Jazeera)

    Coronavirus: Bill Gates warns world is heading towards ‘uncharted territory’ (9News)