Coronavirus: Africa CDC decries effect of lockdowns on delivery of pandemic aid
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) – The delivery life-saving medical supplies needed to support the treatment of coronavirus patients was done successfully in all African countries except Egypt and Morocco, where supplies were interrupted due to airspace lockdown, a senior African Union official said on Thursday.
Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Director John Nkengasong, whose agency coordinates the operation to provide the supplies required to support testing and treatment of patients across Africa, said progress has now been made to ensure the deliveries were successful.
The comprehensive response strategy launched to stop the spread of the disease across Africa involved the deployment of specialised military aircraft which also helped to move coronavirus disease specialists, including epidemiologists, from country-to-country, to provide support.
“The solidarity flights to distribute commodities have all been successful. We have succeeded in distributing supplies to all countries except two countries. It is to be remembered that there are airspace lockdowns across Africa and special permission is required for all flights,” Dr Nkengasong told reporters during a virtual news conference from the AU headquarters.
Egypt and Morocco did not receive the solidarity flights because the organisers did not receive flight landing rights, which had to be sought through diplomatic channels through coordination with the respective government agencies, the AU official said.
“These might look like small things but these are not simple things. Remember airspaces are all locked all across Africa. There is need for all specific information on the flight types and the landing rights. We have since corrected the situation,” Dr. Nkengasong told reporters.
He said the CDC has moved its coronavirus response strategy from what he termed the “operations mode to the responsive mode”.
“We implemented one of the most complicated response activities as far as the history of the disease response on the African continent goes. It involved working with the AU Peace and Security Department to deploy a military aircraft from Cameroon to DRC to pick up skilled epidemiologists and disease responders. It was a complicated a complicated operation,” Dr. Nkengason said.
He said the response strategy showed the kind of the integrated approach which has resulted into lower infection rates and quick response to prevent a deterioration of the disease outbreak in Africa in order to support the members states of the AU.
The operation involved seeking landing permission rights and other logistics because the specific flight delivering the supplies had to be identified to the military agencies through an elaborate security system before being granted the landing rights.
The success of the relief operation showed the commitment of the AU Heads of State and government under the leadership of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat.
The medical supplies which were being distributed included testing devices, gloves, masks, personal protective equipment, ventilators and other mechandise.
The distribution of the medical supplies from various sources including from the Jack Ma Foundation, have among others, enabled countries to improve their capacity to test and detect the spread of the disease.
Coronavirus, which initially entered into Africa as an imported disease, has now spread into the community, with the continent now reporting on average, 30,000 new infections every week.
“Testing is the most important in Africa’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic. We clearly said our testing condition was unacceptable. We are pleased we are slightly under 2 million tests which have been conducted. We have increased testing significantly," Dr. Nkengasong said.
Most of Africa was able to conduct just 5,000 tests on daily basis overall.
However, with the distribution of the medical supplies, which include the distribution of over one million test kits, there has been a marked improvement in the testing capacity.
Nkengasong said the AU has distributed 2.5 million tests kits.
"We still have a gap to test 10 million people because we are supposed to test 12 million people all across Africa," the AU official said.
-0- PANA AO/MA 29May2020
