Feature Stories

Hesitancy to get tested, avoiding contact tracers or wariness of what the neighbours will say: the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a variety of reactions among some Ouagadougou residents that have complicated timely response.

A backpack containing simple but essential medicines and supplies is all Antoinette Nuselie Segla, principal community health nurse, needs to embark on a health outreach in Fadama, a populous community in the north of Ghana’s capital, Accra.

By the time the public health officials reached a Maasai community not far from Nairobi, Julius Oloiboni had already mobilized everyone to protect themselves and others against COVID-19.

When health officials in Kano State noted that turnouts for Covid-19 testing were consistently low across communities, they grew worried. Many residents were unaware of how serious the Covid-19 disease was, and despite sensitization messages on the pandemic, some did not believe COVID-19 was real. How then, officials worried, would health workers be able to convince residents to submit themselves for testing so infected persons could be isolated and treated?

Hauwa Ibrahim is unsure when she will see her family again. Two months ago, the 29-year-old nurse volunteered to work at a COVID-19 treatment centre in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. Worried she might put her family at risk of catching the virus, she opted to stay at the centre. Like her, many health workers lending a hand to the country’s battle against the pandemic have forgone time with family.

Dr Fiona Braka holds one of the highest-stake roles in the African regional polio programme – supporting the Government of Nigeria in their fight to defeat wild poliovirus. She is the first woman to hold her position in Nigeria, and before that was the first female polio team lead in Ethiopia.

When a young man in his town died of a haemorrhagic fever, Fabien Impanda Boliko had to act fast. The 56-year-old laboratory technician in Mbandaka tested and identified the first case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) 11th Ebola outbreak in the western Equateur province.

At the entrance to the Centre de médecine tradi-moderne du village, a health centre offering conventional and herbal treatments, in Beni town, a painted mural shows a man and a woman washing their hands. “Plants are life, handwashing saves lives” a caption reads.

Ali Ngarba says his biggest worry about COVID-19 is that there is no vaccine yet. He shares a compound with three other families in Goudji, a neighbourhood in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, and tries to keep safe: he has set up a handwashing bucket at the doorstep and ventures out only occasionally and when necessary.

When Dr Regis Ondze arrives at work each morning at the Albert Leyono Municipal Clinic, a low-slung beige building with ornate white balustrades near the banks of the Congo River, he finds himself on the frontlines of his country’s fight against COVID-19.