Remarks by WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
Thank you very much to colleagues from the Africa CDC and to colleagues from the media as well. Your role in letting people know what’s happening in the collective effort to contain this pandemic is extremely important.
Thank you, John, for the invitation to join this press conference. I’m very pleased to have this conversation about what countries have achieved over the past eight months and the priorities going forward in the COVID-19 response.
First, I would like really to appreciate John and the team at Africa CDC and also colleagues at the African Union for the excellent partnership in this response and on other health priorities. The continental coordination of COVID-19 is exemplary and sets a new standard for strategic collaboration in global health.
Indeed, we are at a pivotal moment in the pandemic in Africa. While the continent has experienced a downward trend in its epidemic curve during the past three months, this decline has plateaued, and John did share information about some countries in which we are seeing increases in cases.
This comes as we witness a resurgence in new infections in Europe. African governments have also been re-opening their borders and schools, and relaxing restrictions on movement and gathering. This is essential, we cannot be in lockdowns perpetually. So, the continent is at key juncture, where countries could experience an increase in cases, sometimes called a new wave of cases.
However, I am heartened to see that many governments have used the time they had during lockdowns to ramp up their capacities to curb the pandemic.
Working together with WHO, Africa CDC and other partners, African countries are now in a much better position to tackle the new challenges COVID-19 is throwing our way.
Here are some numbers which show the important advances that have been made.
In February this year there were only two labs in our Region which could test for COVID-19, now there are more than 750 such facilities, and they have spread beyond the capital cities into the provinces.
In April there were fewer than 3000 functional ventilators available, by August there were more than 10 000.
In June, assessments WHO conducted of more than 1200 health facilities found that many health-care workers were lacking skills in infection prevention and control and how to keep themselves and their patients safe from the virus. WHO worked with Africa CDC and many other partners to provide training in IPC, as we call it, to more than 150 000 health care workers. Our latest assessment shows an improvement in infection prevention and control and our team is investigating whether this is leading to a decline in new health-care worker infections. We know that health workers are a precious resource in our health systems, so, it very important to prevent them getting infected.
In addition to WHO staff working on emergencies, we have reassigned 900 staff from other programmes to work full-time on the COVID-19 response in countries and at the regional level, and we deployed more than 200 international experts before the lockdowns started and borders closed. Our experience shows that control of outbreaks is won or lost at the local level. So, we stationed response workers in cities where the virus tends to enter, and in provinces and districts to ensure that public health capacities are built up and present in every community.
In South Africa, which is the worst-affected country by far on the continent, a WHO surge team was deployed into districts and hotspots, and we helped with an intra-action review that has enabled the Government to refine the response at the local level. These reviews are also happening in countries like Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia, to ensure the response continues to be adjusted as the situation evolves.
In Senegal we moved quickly with the Government to install incident management systems in each of the country’s 14 regions and at the district level and worked to ensure that they functioned well.
So, while the lockdowns have helped countries to keep cases lower than the initial projections, these came at a high socio-economic cost. Many income-generating activities have come to a standstill, wrecking livelihoods and pushing people into poverty.
The pandemic has also put a real strain on key supplies as countries across the globe compete for the same vital tools. So, while countries still need more equipment, they are much better placed than a few months back thanks to the efforts of the Africa CDC (and John was just telling us of yet another delivery to countries that you are carrying out) as well as the efforts that we at WHO and other partners have made.
Through the UN supply portal over 48 million items of personal protective equipment have been shipped to African countries and 27 million are in the pipeline. More than four million lab tests have been delivered, as well as 3200 oxygen concentrators.
We know that COVID-19 has disrupted other essential services, and so we have worked with partners to overcome stockouts of essential medicines, like insulin, antibiotics, and provided guidance to resume immunization campaigns and other routine services, with proper safety precautions in place for health workers and communities. We don’t want people to die of other diseases because all our attention is on COVID-19.
With partners we have reached out to communities to raise awareness of the preventive measures, including the more than 345,000 community health workers mobilized across countries, and trainings with local leaders and influencers in 45 countries, with a-quarter-of-a-million participants, who in turn will reach millions of people each month.
Now we need to monitor adherence to the preventive measures, and ensure that communities are enabled, they understand, and are convinced to play their role, because they know it is important even if it is not pleasant and convenient. We do so fatigue coming in sometimes, but we need to keep up the effort and I think most importantly we need to make sure that regardless if I can’t afford to buy a mask, that masks are made available, and that people keep being reminded why it’s important to protect your loved ones and it’s not just that you are obeying the orders of a government minister.
So turning now to the COVID-19 vaccine: the roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine will be the biggest immunization effort in the history of the continent, we think. Massive preparations are underway, through the COVAX facility, which is being coordinated by Gavi and WHO, with the participation of many international partners and governments, to ensure that when a safe and effective vaccine is available, it is distributed equitably – 180 countries, or 90% of the world’s population, have now joined this COVAX platform.
In WHO, we have established a Regional Taskforce for COVID-19 Vaccines Readiness and Delivery. Through the taskforce we will increase our technical support to countries, starting with the national regulatory authorities, because they have to accept and approve the deployment of a vaccine in the country. So we are working with them already in planning for vaccine approvals and distribution and will work with governments to define the priority groups that should be the first to receive the vaccine in a phased delivery, because we know that there will not be sufficient vaccine for everybody in the country at the same time.
You may be aware that one of the main concerns is financing of both the procurement and, if you like, reservation of vaccine supplies, and also very importantly getting money so the operations of deploying the vaccine are well-funded and well-organized in our countries.
We have had some very encouraging news in the last couple of weeks. The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved $12 billion in financing for developing countries to finance both the purchase of the vaccine, including supporting some of the low-income and lower-middle-income countries to make their own contribution and also to support the delivery of the vaccine. Then on 6 October, almost 1 billion dollars was pledged by several countries, the UK, Canada, Germany, Italy and Sweden so that we are able to reserve the vaccine that is needed, most importantly for so-called AMC-eligible economies. Countries that need support to pay their part of the contribution for the vaccine, can be supported. So, we are working very hard at the international level to make sure there is going to be vaccine availability to start in African countries as well as in the wealthier countries and then we progressively phase in the deployment of this vaccine.
I’d like to congratulate John and echo our excitement over the Africa Pathogens Genomics Initiative. This builds on 25 years of experience through WHO’s laboratory networks for different diseases, including the COVID-19 sequencing network that we launched together in September. This Initiative will greatly assist in ensuring genomic information informs public health actions and John explained that very well – a huge congratulations for this giant step.
I would like to congratulate John and the Africa Pathogens Genomics Initiative and just say that this initiative will greatly assist in ensuring that genomic information informs public health actions.
In closing, I commend Africa’s Heads of State for their determined leadership of the response, supported by high-level multisectoral taskforces and national incident management systems. These mechanisms were activated rapidly, and they have served as a vehicle to steer the response, driven by the data.
In the coming months, we must remain vigilant in wearing our masks, in keeping a distance and in frequently washing our hands – because this must be our new normal.
Recognizing that no one is safe until we are all safe, solidarity, equity, science should guide the response to address disparities that already existed and were exacerbated by COVID-19 and reduce the risks, particularly for vulnerable groups.
I look forward very much to our discussion today and again John, thank you so much for having invited and thank you for the fabulous partnership that we have in order to work together for our continent.
Thank you.