Third World Countries Could be Decimated by COVID-19 Outbreak

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Last October, researchers from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the John Hopkins University Centre for Health Security, and the Economist Intelligence Unit created a Global Health Security Index to assess the health security of 195 countries.

The report illustrates how prepared a country will be if an infectious disease outbreak, like the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, or other biological catastrophe happens.

The overall Global Health Security Index of each country was calculated from six categories: prevention of pathogens and toxins, early detection and reporting for pandemics, rapid response to pandemics, strong health system, compliance with international norms, and risk environment and vulnerability to biological threats.

The report indicated that most countries are not fully prepared for a widespread disease outbreak -- 72 countries fell into this category.

It’s no surprise to learn that the least-prepared states with the worst health care systems are found in the global south, mainly in Africa and the South Pacific.

Much of Africa has substandard health care. There are few hospital beds for acute respiratory illness. Even basic sanitation is absent in some of the rural areas.

Equatorial Guinea was the least-prepared country for an epidemic, based on the health scores from the report. Other African countries in major trouble were Somalia, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau, Gabon, South Sudan, Eritrea, Burundi, Djibouti, Republic of the Congo, and Algeria.

In the South Pacific, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Niue, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Palau all scored in the bottom 25.

The World Health Organization has warned that health systems in many African countries are not equipped to respond to the pandemic.

Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on African Union member states “to come together to be more aggressive in attacking” the virus. The ability to procure diagnostics in a timely fashion will be limited.

Africa is awakening to COVID-19, according to Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. But countries in Africa have little capacity to contain and track people infected.

Some African countries are more familiar with epidemics, their transmission and containment as a result of Ebola, but the lessons learned, he maintained, have been more on paper than in practice.

Many African countries are shutting their airports and land borders to keep out people from countries with a high number of coronavirus cases. Hundreds of international flights have been canceled, and schools have been closed.

Africa’s largest air carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, is experiencing at least a 25 per cent reduction in passengers during the outbreak.

Ethiopia, Senegal and Kenya have announced school closures and bans on public assemblies to check the spread of the virus.

 “We are imposing a travel ban on foreign nationals from high-risk countries such as Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom and China as from 18 March 2020,” President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa announced March 15.

Other countries imposing a travel ban on foreigners from countries with cases of coronavirus include Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. “All travel to Ghana is strongly discouraged at this point in time,” said Ghana’s Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah the same day.

The stress on already fragile economies in many African countries, could be “catastrophic,” stated Arkebe Oqubay, a senior minister and special adviser to Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, predicting that sinking oil prices will affect Africa’s oil producing countries.

In the South Pacific, most island nations cannot screen for the virus, potentially masking its spread. So they are imposing strict lockdown measures to combat the outbreak, denying access to vessels and prohibiting human-to-human contact during aircraft refuelling.

Coral atolls in the northern Cook Islands are even turning away supply ships in an attempt to prevent infection. Island residents understand that coronavirus infection could be catastrophic due to a lack of medical facilities.

The Marshall Island suspended all incoming air travel, while cruise ships have been denied port calls in New Caledonia, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Samoa, among others, as local authorities tighten controls.

Meanwhile, Fiji opened its first facility capable of testing for the coronavirus, one of only four such facilities in the region, Radio New Zealand reported.

While the wealthy Global North is struggling to contain COVID-19, it’s worth remembering that the Third World is even more vulnerable to its impact.