Nigeria and twelve other nations have been listed as high-risk
African countries for coronavirus by the World Health Organisation.
Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Ivory Coast, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia were
identified as African nations with direct links or a high volume of
travel to China.
The statement read in parts;
“WHO has identified 13 top priority countries (Algeria, Angola,
Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia)
which either have direct links or a high volume of travel to China.“To ensure rapid detection of the novel coronavirus, it is
important to have laboratories which can test samples and WHO is
supporting countries to improve their testing capacity. Since this is a
new virus, there are currently only two referral laboratories in the
African region which have the reagents needed to conduct such tests.“However, reagent kits are being shipped to more than 20 other
countries in the region, so diagnostic capacity is expected to increase
over the coming days. Active screening at airports has been established
in a majority of these countries and while they will be WHO first areas
of focus, the organization will support all countries in the region in
their preparation efforts.“It is critical that countries step up their readiness and in
particular put in place effective screening mechanisms at airports and
other major points of entry to ensure that the first cases are detected
quickly”.
WHO is already scaling up novel coronavirus preparedness efforts in
the African region and supporting countries to implement recommendations
outlined by the International Health Regulations Emergency
Committee which met in Geneva, Switzerland on January 30. It also stated
that the faster the virus is detected, the quicker it can be contained
to ensure it does not overwhelm health systems of the affected
countries.