Scientists in Europe and America have expressed consternation over low infection rate of coronavirus in African countries while Europe and America pay huge price for the pandemic.
National Daily gathered that scientists in Europe and America conducting survey on the spread of coronavirus across the world were shocked that their expectations that the African continent would be home to the coronavirus pandemic never occurred.
The scientists are conducting their studies on the statistics that the 26.35 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus across the world; four countries were identified to have recorded 15 million of the global infections. The countries include America, Brazil, India, and Russia; they were identified to have been at the top of high infection rate for months.
The US in spite of the high technological development surprised the world to have recorded the highest infection rate, being on top of the records of COVID-19 statistics, in the total number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths.
The scientists noted that in Africa, South Africa recorded the highest coronavirus infection figure of nearly 631,000 victims. However, the country recorded less than 15,000 deaths from COVID-19.
Other African countries, including Nigeria, have sustained low infection rates with low deaths from coronavirus.
Invariably, Western scientists have been wondering over the behaviour of COVID-19, trying to understand how the virus potency and how it can be contained.
The scientists faulted the hypothesis suggesting poverty has a significant effect on the spread of coronavirus in study the virus on the African continent. They argued that other developing countries like Brazil and India recorded high infection rate, thus, the virus was not controlled which it infested victims in densely populated, but poor, neighborhoods in those countries.
Some scientists wonder why the situation is different in African countries both in confirmed cases and case rates. They insinuate that coronavirus cases are underreported in Africa; there was speculation of pending disaster on the African continent based on the above assumption. But this is never the case.
Thus, Professor Shabir Madhi, virologist, was cited by the BBC News to have said: “I thought we were heading towards a disaster, a complete meltdown.” That was his reflection on the anticipated coronavirus outbreak in Africa. It was, however, acknowledged that the death rate in South Africa is about seven times lower than in the United Kingdom.
Another scholar, Salim Abdool Karim, head of the COVID-19 response team in UK, was also cited to have told BBC that “most African countries don’t have a peak; I don’t understand why. I’m completely at sea.” this was noted to be surprising.
Abdool Karim had postulated that that population density would be sensitive variable that would give impetus to the rapid spread of coronavirus in Africa. He had stated that crowding in poverty-stricken areas makes social distancing all but impossible, and that increases the risk of COVID-19 spreading. Unfortunately, his postulation was not sustainable and became invalidated by the realities in the African continent.
However, National Daily gathered that a major hypothesis that may explain the disparity of coronavirus infection in Africa and other continents is the overall age of the population. It was pointed out that Africa has younger population than other countries worst hit by coronavirus.
More so, cold, and hot weather were also identified as noticeable variables, but no conclusive study has been conducted to verify the assumption.