The prospects for the SARS ‐CoV‐2 pandemic in Africa

Abstract

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese government officially announced the identification of a new type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) as the etiological cause of a severe acute respiratory syndrome in Wuhan city, Hubei Province. Over the next weeks, SARS-CoV-2 caused a global pandemic as officially declared by the WHO on March 11, 2020, with confirmed cases and deaths in more than 166 countries. We are experiencing a worldwide phenomenon of unprecedented social and economic consequences. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, there have been fears that the epidemic could strongly impact weaker health-care systems in poor-resource settings, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The 2 million Chinese nationals that live and work in Africa could potentially contribute to the spread of COVID-19 on the continent.