One Year of COVID-19 Pandemic in West Africa
In a few days, it will be one year since the first recorded case Covid-19 in West Africa. In the last one year, the Covid-19 pandemic has affected our lives and world like no other event has in recent times. It was declared a public health emergency of international concern, by the World Health Organization on the 30th of January, 2020, at that time, it seemed far away but it was just a matter of time before we all knew it was not going to be a walk in the park.
The first case was reported in West Africa, specifically, on the 27th February, 2020 in Nigeria and by the end of March, 2020 all 15 West Africa countries had had at least a case, Sierra Leone being the last country to report one. Great fear and panic seized many, the symptoms linked to Covid-19 was common to many other endemic illnesses in the region, so there was palpable fear in the air. As a result many became the ‘worried wells’- a situation where many people visited hospitals for consultation, testing or as it is the usual practice in this part of the world, many called friends who are doctors, nurses or other healthcare professionals for reassurance.
Some, due to anxiety, even though not exposed in any real way, started experiencing symptoms similar to those of Covid-19, others who may have been exposed or feared that they would get exposed even without the symptoms, sought medical services as a preventive measure, to alleviate their anxiety or for reassurance, while another set of individuals experienced anxiety or distress following traumatic events. The border closure, lockdown, ‘different policy or treatment somersaults’ and other non-pharmaceutical measures enforced all did a good job at fueling the fire of fear and anxiety. Fake news peddled on various social media platforms made an already bad, unpleasant and a difficult situation, even worse. The effect on the mental state of citizens, the economy, social life, planned events and activities was devastating to say the least.
Soon after there was some clarity on how to avoid getting infected and on how to manage the illness, a decline in the number of confirmed cases was evident, this was after months or scary figures reported daily. The heave of a sigh of relief was truncated by the news of a possible second wave, one that eventual came at around October/November, 2020 following the relaxation of some of the restrictions. The worst is not over!
As at the moment, the West African sub-region has had 372,034 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 4,713 deaths as a result of it. The good news is that quite a good number of those have recovered (about 87%) but at the moment we actually have more active cases than we had in the first wave. Although, the virus has not been as virulent in our region as it has been in other parts of the world, we have had our fair share of the illness and deaths. While there is the race for achieving herd immunity via vaccination in the developed world, on this side of the world, we need to still stick to our preventive protocols as the vaccines may not arrive anytime soon.
So what have we learnt? For one, we all have added to our vocabularies, some medical jargons have filtered into our day to day conversations, others have brushed up on their epidemiology (that was on a lighter note). But seriously, we have learnt to keep a comfortable distance (physical distancing) when in public, proper hand hygiene, shelfing unnecessary travels, gathers or events, and use technology in more creative ways. I hope these lessons stay with us for far longer than the virus.
