Until then rather spared, the most disadvantaged countries may be, in turn, swept away by the “wave” of Covid-19. With potentially devastating consequences, in these states with extremely limited sanitary facilities. How do you properly care for hundreds or thousands of patients when you don’t even have 100 intensive care beds?
In these states, often located in Africa and Asia, sometimes torn apart by internal conflicts, the official number of cases detected remains limited: 5 in Syria, 1 in Libya, 3 in the Central African Republic, or 94 in Afghanistan on Friday, for example. Balance sheets far from those of the main European countries, such as France, where the cases number in the tens of thousands. But figures which are largely underestimated.
And for good reason: the screening capacities for coronavirus are weak there, even non-existent. “We are only at the beginning of the epidemic, especially in Africa”, points out to us Florence Daunis, director of operations at Handicap International, who warns: “There is a great concern for the coming weeks”.
“As long as there is a patient, the pandemic will not be over”
The international community would be well advised to mobilize for these poor states because they “present a huge risk at the global level”, judge François Gemenne, researcher at the University of Liège, contacted by Le Parisien. “This is the theory of the weak link: as long as you still have sick people in a country, the pandemic is not over because the virus can circulate. It is therefore in the interests of industrialized countries to help the poorest, ”he says.
The secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, also launched on Wednesday a call for a “global cease-fire”. Belligerents in several countries, such as Yemen and Libya, responded positively to this call on Thursday. They are among those which most worry the international community. “They no longer have a state, and therefore no longer have the power to impose measures of containment or social distancing”, judge François Gemenne.
The UN boss, fearing millions of deaths, also called on the countries that can afford it to mobilize financially. The objective is to raise two billion dollars, while more than half of the world population is constrained by strict confinement, without leaving home. These sums should in particular be used to install equipped field hospitals.
Newsletter – The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le Parisien–
In the night from Thursday to Friday, Emmanuel Macron indicated on Twitter that he was preparing with other countries, including the United States, a “major new initiative” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, without providing further details.
Very good discussion with @realDonaldTrump. In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, with other countries, we are preparing for the next few days an important new initiative.
– Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 26, 2020
—
Without delay, private initiatives appeared, such as that of the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, owner of the online sales site Ali Baba, who offered the member countries of the African Union millions of test kits, masks and combination of protection. Doctors Without Borders has already converted some of its hospitals into care centers for Covid-19 patients. The NGOs, already present on the ground, are on the front line in this “war” against the coronavirus, to use the term used by Emmanuel Macron. A maximum of inhabitants will also have to be screened in order to take care of the sick before they contaminate other people. The Syrian city of Idlib has already received 900 screening kits from the World Health Organization, which plans to ship 5,000 more next week.Idlib screening, the situation in refugee camps in Libya
