Working Together to Help Africa Fight Covid-19

As numbers of Covid-19 cases on the African continent have risen, African leaders have responded by implementing a range of prevention and containment measures. As of April 19^th, several African countries had either imposed night-time curfews, partial lockdowns, and in cases like South Africa and Rwanda, full national lockdowns.

For the most part, and perhaps as a result of early action taken by African governments combined with a population whose median age is 20, the African continent has been relatively fortunate and spared from the influx of Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths that have been seen in Asia, Europe, and the United States. Put in context, Africa, with a population of a little over 1.2 billion people, has seen fewer cases cumulatively than Belgium which has a population of 11 million.

This is not to say that the African continent is out of the woods just yet. A lack of testing kits on the continent means that there is a possibility that Covid-19 cases are being under-reported. During the week of April 20^th, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 418,000 tests had been carried out in Africa which translates to 325 tests per million people, far less than the roughly 21,000 tests per million people in Italy. With cases on the continent rising slowly but steadily, best-scenario modeling by Imperial College London suggests that the continent can expect to see 122 million Covid-19 cases by the end of 2020.

Cases aside, the World Bank predicts that the Covid-19 crisis will send the entire African continent into its first recession in 25 years. With many African economies already in delicate situations that have resulted in increased food insecurity, the pandemic is set to amplify an already growing challenge. This challenge will be particularly magnified in East Africa where governments, pre-Covid-19, were already battling the region’s largest locust infestation in decades.

#MeetingThisMoment: Our Africa Response

The Rockefeller Foundation’s presence on the African continent dates back to 1966, and now as we have done over the last 54 years, we stand ready to support the continent. Starting with Kenya, where our regional offices are hosted, we recently awarded a $1 million grant to Amref Health Africa to provide essential medical equipment to Kenya’s Ministry of Health and strengthen the government’s efforts to combat the spread of Covid-19.  In line with the Ministry of Health standards and requirements, this grant funded Amref Health Africa’s procurement of commodities which included hospital beds, masks, ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, and patient monitors among others.