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‘It would spread quickly’: Africa not ready for coronavirus outbreak, health workers say
- Countries race to take precautions but effort complicated by lack of testing kits
Reading Time:5 minutes
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At a Chinese-run hospital in Zambia, some employees watched as people who recently returned from China showed up with coughs but were not placed in isolation. A doctor tending to those patients has stopped coming to work, and health workers have been ordered not to speak publicly about the new virus that has killed hundreds.
The virus that has spread through much of China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are worried about the threat to the continent where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live, as some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.
Countries are racing to take precautions as hundreds of travellers arrive from China every day. Safeguards include stronger surveillance at ports of entry and improved quarantine and testing measures across Africa, home to 1.2 billion people and some of the world’s weakest systems for detecting and treating disease.
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But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and numerous illnesses that display symptoms similar to the flu-like virus.
“The problem is, even if it’s mild, it can paralyse the whole community,” said Michel Yao, emergency operations manager in Africa for the World Health Organisation.
Those growing worried include employees at the Sino-Zambia Friendship Hospital in the mining city of Kitwe in northern Zambia, near the Congo border. Chinese companies operate mines on the outskirts of the city of more than half a million people. One company is headquartered in Wuhan, the city at the centre of the virus outbreak. Hundreds of workers travelled between Zambia and China in recent weeks.
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