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. 2020 Apr 10:48:18.
doi: 10.1186/s41182-020-00206-x. eCollection 2020.

Is Sub-Saharan Africa prepared for COVID-19?

Edwin Nuwagira  1 , Conrad Muzoora  1
Affiliations

Is Sub-Saharan Africa prepared for COVID-19?

Edwin Nuwagira et al. Trop Med Health. .

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is the latest virus to cause global health panic. Due to the rapidly escalating numbers of new infections outside China, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, in a message delivered by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General [1]. As of March 21, about 166 countries globally had recoded cases of the COVID-19 in only 4 months since its outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China [2, 3]. With the Antarctic continent unaffected, Africa, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), has recorded the least number of cases, despite the cited moderate-to-high risk of infection [4]. The biggest challenge is whether Sub-Saharan Africa is ready for this pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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