The success of East African countries in controlling against the pandemic
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The success of some East African countries in controlling the pandemic as compared to most countries worldwide.
Covid 19 is a pandemic that has gravely impacted East African countries and the world in general. The virus has divided the world and countries along the borders and in someplace to the extent of tribe and race. The most uncertain part is how far these divisions will go. Countries have applied responses with most applying completely uncoordinated responses to fend for people’s survival. . Despite some of the countries like the United States finding it functionally a bit late in fighting the pandemic, several lessons can be learned from East African countries on how to deal with the pandemic. With this, it is vital to discuss how East African countries have been successful in controlling the pandemic as compared to most of the countries in the world.
The pandemic is seen to test each countries disaster management systems and the swiftness to respond and efficiently handle such a public health disaster. From the period the first case was reported in each country, they have all strived to respond to the pandemic with different levels of success. An example of this is Nigeria; on 4th March, it was the first country to be able to structure the SARS CoV-2 genome, while South Africa is seen to be leading in undertaking tests per capita. They can undertake 27,485 tests for each group of a million individuals. This is as per the report given on 1st July (Carpenter & Carpenter, 2020).
Several countries such as Cape Town to Cairo have taken advantage of the pandemic and combined both the present and innovation of new health care protocols to improve response effectiveness. They have improved from the structuring of affordable methods to emergency and digital technologies for purposes such as tracking of people and other pandemic handling procedures. East African countries have been able to apply several measures in an effort to successfully control the country. Countries such as Taiwan and South Korea have been at the forefront in acting as examples to the others. However, there have been some high-tech societies that have shown cultural biasness towards the changes, thus blocking the control measures such as wearing masks and resources put in place to help in deploying, testing, and contact tracing on a large scale. It is vital to note that East African countries have been able to handle and contain the pandemic as compared to the United States.
African countries suffering from struggles and civil-war settings have been seen to experience more potential effects of the pandemic as compared to the wealthy and stable countries. The living status in refugee camps can find measures such as social distancing a bit difficult. Humanitarian and health services could also be already overstretched, and the money was given by donors decreasing due to the wealthy countries turning inwards. The above factors have been seen to make emerging economies in areas such as East Africa being more prepared for the pandemic. Stable African countries include Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda, while the unstable ones entail South Sudan, Somalia, and Sudan. The stable countries share moderately lower incidences of the virus and better coordinated and proactive responses to the crisis (Travaley & Mare, 2020).
Better coordination and preparedness of the measures in East Africa are due to the government taking early prevention measures. An example of this is in March; President Trump stated that the United States had tremendous control of the virus while the presidents of countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan issued a well-detailed announcement providing tough measures to help to delay the arrival of the disease and suppress its spreading. Some of the East African countries took measures to avoid spreading the virus even before the virus was in the country, thus reducing entry and spreading of the virus.
The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, took his time and gave an eloquent and detailed explanation of the virus, its transmission, and how people are at risk before issuing a systematic plan of border, church, and school closures. He also began a measure of social distancing and stopped events involving crowds such as funerals and weddings. Countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan shut down both air and ground borders. This avoided passengers and helped to undertake a thorough cleaning of incoming cargos.
The measure placed in east African countries were all rolled out in a well-controlled manner without any political interference and also with a reasonable amount of time given to start the given guidelines. An example of this is Kenya, which gave an estimate of 48 hours for any visitors in the country to either leave or participate in the measures by being under quarantine. On the other hand, Uganda methodically shut down the primary level education and later the university level. Despite this measure helping control the pandemic, they have highly affected the economic status of the East African countries. An example of this is the travel restrictions that have effectively impacted the popular tourist sector of both Uganda and Kenya. However, it was important since the citizens’ health are of more importance than profits to the countries.
Also, these east African countries were seen to have portrayed a quicker and more effective response to the pandemic since this is not the first pandemic they have had to deal with. East African countries have dealt with other pandemic cases such as HIV-AIDS, cholera, influenza, and Ebola. These pandemics served as lessons for the East African countries, thus gave an idea on how to handle a pandemic. During the previous pandemics, the lessons learned by the countries served as a guide book on the need to take any pandemic seriously and start the required measure without hesitance. With this, the East African countries took the learned measure into quick action when the Covid 19 pandemic stroke.
Following president Museveni’s words, “By confronting this disease with enlightened, scientifically based actions, we shall defeat it as we did with Ebola three times, with Marburg and with AIDS.” Following the quick measures activation, the country has had a significantly lower count of the case counts and death rate in east Africa. Also, the countries have shown preparedness due to their emphasis on the importance of International Corporation. The East African countries make up the members of (IGAD), International authority and development; they met on 30th March through a video conferencing and decided to jointly come up with a regional response, to create an emergency fund, and also rally any form of support from the international community. They also decided to seek help from the IGAD medical experts in Diaspora, thus maximizing any help to assist in controlling the pandemic (Tetui, 2020).
The pandemic has also resulted in local innovation, with several researchers in universities such as Makerere developing a quicker and cheaper test kit while college learners in Kenya are being innovative and coming up with ideas on how to gather ventilators from the locally obtained objects. East African countries have also highly benefitted from international generosity, such as the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma who donated test kits, protective equipment, and face masks to African countries. Countries such as China, Canada, the United States, and Germany have also given out millions of dollars to aid south Sudan. Humanitarian organizations in east African countries have also strived to assists countries with weak medical structures. These measures have been highly effective in controlling the spread and effects of the pandemic in east African countries.
Conclusion
The most notable fact about East African countries is their symbolic and proactive approach to the pandemic. This has been seen to create a big difference between the East African countries and the Chinese and American approaches put in place. Such moves of pro-activeness in these countries have, therefore, been seen to have a great effect on the countries’ ability to take control and reduce the spread of the virus. On the other hand, reluctance in other countries has been seen to result in severe damage and the spread of the virus in less proactive countries. Countries such as the United States can, therefore, highly benefit from the east African countries as examples of the capacity of taking measures to control and prevent the pandemic.
References
Carpenter, E. H., & Carpenter, C. (2020). East Africa has weathered pandemics — and has a few things to teach the U.S. washingtonpost.
Tetui, M. (2020). Coronavirus in East Africa. thinkglobalhealth.
Travaly, Y., & Mare, A. (2020). Learning from the best: Evaluating Africa’s COVID-19 responses. Brookings.