The coronavirus pandemic is likely to leave Africa with grave economic and social implications that will require international assistance to be mitigated in order not to cancel out the continent's development of the past several years, Graciano Masauso, the founder of the Africa Health Organization (AHO), told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th July, 2020) The coronavirus pandemic is likely to leave Africa with grave economic and social implications that will require international assistance to be mitigated in order not to cancel out the continent's development of the past several years, Graciano Masauso, the founder of the Africa Health Organization (AHO), told Sputnik.
"When or if the pandemic ends, Africa will be faced with the aftershock. This could be any number of things, but we are currently seeing famine, noncommunicable diseases, and a lack of vaccination," Masauso said, adding that "In the long term, assistance will also be necessary for aiding economic recession and delivering the potential vaccine."
The AHO chief opined that the pandemic is fraught with undermining the continent's hard-achieved economic development of the past years.
"Efforts against poverty and development in the last decade can easily be undone by COVID-19. This is especially so for many countries that rely on tourism, which will take a long-time to be restored to pre-pandemic levels," Masauso said.
Additionally, the NGO head fears that the coronavirus-compelled closure of schools can also set back recent education developments, especially for girls, which, in turn, threatens to refuel gender inequalities.
There are also other needs of immediate urgency, according to Masauso, such as personal protection equipment and resources for increasing testing capacity, the lack of which is particularly concerning in the light of a recent upsurge of cases among medical workers, specifically in South Africa.
One way in which the NGO chief believes international financial institutions like the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund can alleviate the pandemic's pressure on struggling countries is by suspending debt payments until shocks are mitigated.
The latest WHO figures show that Africa is the world's second least affected region to the Western Pacific, with a little more than 726,000 confirmed cases and 12,257 fatalities. However, the spread of the infection has recently notably accelerated, as the number of cases and deaths have almost tripled in just one month since late June.
The global coronavirus toll has meanwhile surpassed 16.3 million, while the death toll has reached 650,805, according to the World Health Organization.
