Feature Stories

New COVID-19 variants have emerged in Africa as the continent records a new peak in infections. While virus mutations are not unusual, those that are more infectious are worrisome. Professor Francisca Mutapi, Professor in Global Health Infection and Immunity, University of Edinburgh, explains the implications of SARS-CoV-2 variants and what African countries can do to respond.

In early November 2020, positive samples for yellow fever were reported from five Nigerian states. Nigeria is a high-risk country for yellow fever and is a priority country for the global eliminate yellow fever epidemics (EYE) strategy. The re-emergence of the virus there in September 2017 has been marked by outbreaks throughout the country. 

For 60-year-old Gabriel Wahome, it is simple: “universal health coverage was a very good idea,” he says. “We were happy about it.”

When Regina Otokpa, an Abuja-based journalist, co-authored a newspaper article on poor observance of mask-wearing and physical distancing directives in Nigeria, it caused some buzz.

“COVID-19 doesn’t kill anybody in Angola as we are immune due to malaria,” so goes one of the myriad falsehoods about the pandemic in the southern African country.

More than 3.3 million children have been vaccinated against polio in Chad in a just-concluded immunization drive – one of the largest of its kind in the African region this year as campaigns that were halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic resume.

Because her government aggressively pursued treatment as prevention for people living with HIV, Thembi Dlamini and several women in her support group have been able to counsel each other, give family advice and run an artisanal business. In other words, their government gave them a life together.

A month after Uganda instituted stringent measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, the threat of another disease outbreak prompted a new nationwide campaign: “Why survive COVID-19 and die of malaria?” rang a slogan on the airwaves.

Malaria is an abiding threat to Amina Yusuf Mkwanywe, a resident of Ikwiriri in Tanzania’s southern Rufiji district. “I really have to be vigilant all the time to be free of malaria,” she says.

Vanessa Carter nearly lost her face to antibiotic resistance.

She likely acquired a bacterial infection while in hospital during one of many complicated facial surgeries. None of the many doctors she had in the first six years of those surgeries ever mentioned antibiotic resistance to her. Because she was oblivious to the dangers of stopping an antibiotic drug or even an antibiotic ointment after a couple days when it appeared to not be working, she sees herself as part of the complication – back then. 

Now, she is a force for common knowledge.