And then there was one.

On the last day of April, Comoran President Azali Assoumani announced that a 50 year old compatriot has contracted COVID 19.

That leaves Lesotho as the only African country free of coronavirus.

The infected Comoran had been in contact with a French-Comoran national with a history of travel to France.

Authorities are at full stretch ascertaining who the infected man has been in contact with.

A nighttime curfew has been imposed. Assoumani says he has not implemented a tougher lockdown because the majority of his one million people live off informal earnings.

Large gathering are prohibited and Mosques were ordered closed. Nevertheless in the holy month of Ramadan people congregated around the time of prayers and police were moved in to disperse them.

The immediate reaction from the Moroni government mirrors that of other African countries that closed their borders and ordered populations to stay at home immediately COVID 19 cases were detected.

So far this  has held at bay the viral onslaught predicated for Africa by the World Health Organization.

Nevertheless the UN  health body persists that Africa, with hundreds of millions crowded into informal housing settlements and notorious weak healthcare infrastructures, is in danger of becoming the COVID 19 nightmare.

Among the reasons for Africa staying behind the curve is the fact that international  correspondents based in capitals like Johannesburg, Nairobi and Addis Ababa have tended to stay put – in their countries if not their capitals – because of the border closures.

They have reported diligently on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s success in handing off mass infections thanks to draconian lockdown regulations.

But they have not been able to answer why other must poorer countries have much lower infection rates.

Is it climactic conditions? Coronavirus spread through Europe, China and the United States in the flu season i.e. the winter months. It has been a warm summer in the southern hemisphere.

Is it African countries experience in dealing with highly infectious diseases like EBOLA, malaria, tuberculosis, measles and SARS?

Is the tuberculosis vaccine BCG administered to African children shortly after birth effective against COVID 19.

Is it the youthfulness of the African population and the growing evidence that, deadly as it might be to the elderly and the medically compromised, COVID 19 barely affects the youth?

Is it – and this is quite terrifying –  because African countries have simply not been equipped to count the number of infections?

Burundi, which came into the game very late, made this admission.through its Health Minister Thadée Ndikumana

To each of these, honest observers must say what any responsible journalists covering  the pandemic should say. We simply don’t know.

The post Comoros is the second last African country to acknowledge a COVID 19 case appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Angry locals stoned health workers disinfecting  the home of the first identified new case.

The three new cases of EBOLA – after a seven-week period of no infections – are a 26-year-old electrician, and girls aged 11 and 7.

They are all connected to the Horizon Healthcare Centre in Beni.

Authorities say all the medical workers dealing with the outbreak that killed more than 2 200 people have been vaccinated.

Battling COVID 19 and the worst measles outbreak on the planet, these workers are at full stretch trying to prevent EBOLA taking hold again.

The post Congo confirms third new case of EBOLA appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The world body says its absolutely vital to beef up health care of children in the DRC also facing  measles, cholera, malaria and EBOLA.

The figures are alarming. 5 300 children under five years old died from the world’s worst measles outbreak in the DRC last year.

There were more than 16,5 million cases of malaria resulting in more than 7000 deaths.

Cholera sickened 31 000 Congolese children.

The EBOLA outbreak is waning – no thanks to the various rebel militia that have turned three provinces in the Eastern DRC into a war zone.

The post COVID 19 is the fifth deadly disease being fought in the Congo appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.