Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection
First COVID-19 case in Zambia — Comparative phylogenomic analyses of SARS-CoV-2 detected in African countries
The WHO declared COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020 and later a pandemic on 11 March 2020 (WHO, 2020a). As of 28 September 2020, there were 32.7 million COVID-19 cases with 991,000 deaths worldwide reported to the WHO (2020b). All African countries have been affected and have reported a total of 1,172,342 COVID-19 cases, including 25,481 deaths (WHO, 2020b). As the global COVID-19 events unfolded, and Africa’s first COVID-19 case was reported from Egypt on 14 February 2020, many African countries prepared for the arrival of COVID-19 (Kapata et al., 2020).COVID-19 and malaria: A symptom screening challenge for malaria endemic countries
The unprecedented global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly spread to all continents (WHO, 2020a). Whilst spread to Africa has been slow, there are now increasing numbers of COVID-19 being reported from African countries who are preparing themselves (Kapata et al., 2020) for an exponential rise in numbers of cases. As of 26th April 2020, there have been 2,804,796 confirmed COVIDD-19 cases reported to the WHO with 193,710 deaths. In Africa there have been 20,316 cases with 839 deaths reported from 49 countries (WHO, 2020b).Is Africa prepared for tackling the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic. Lessons from past outbreaks, ongoing pan-African public health efforts, and implications for the future
Soon after the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV), was first identified in a cluster of patients with pneumonia (Li et al., 2020), in the Chinese city of Wuhan on 31 December 2019, rapid human to human transmission was anticipated (Hui et al., 2020). The fast pace of transmission is wreaking havoc and stirring media hype and public health concern (Ippolito et al., 2020) globally. When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the disease, (now officially named COVID-19) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 31st January 2020 (WHO, 2020a), the Director General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus justified the decision by stating that WHOs greatest concern was the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems.
