The virus that has spread through much of China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent.
An estimated 1 million Chinese now live there, there are no strict controls at airports and some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.
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 around the world.
Countries are racing to take precautions as hundreds of travelers 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.
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 paralyze the whole community,” said Dr. Michel Yao, emergency operations manager in Africa for the World Health Organization.
Hundreds of workers traveled between Zambia and China in recent weeks from Chinese Company based in Wuhan
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 center of the virus outbreak. Hundreds of workers traveled between Zambia and China in recent weeks.
“We’re definitely not prepared. If we had a couple of cases, it would spread very quickly,” physiotherapist Fundi Sinkala said. “We’re doing the best we can with what resources we have.”
No case of fever? A notice posted by the Zambia-China Cooperation Zone, which manages the hospital, quoted an employee as saying on Jan. 27 that the facility “probably sees 120 fever patients a day, and at least 70 of them are carrying germs” of various diseases. It all looks like a cover up to me!
Adding to concerns at Sinozam, three employees say Zambian health officials visited on Tuesday and have been testing the bodies of two Chinese patients that have been in the morgue for days
Earlier this week, a Zambian official acknowledged for the first time that his country was following up on an unspecified number of suspected cases. Zambia is one of 13 African countries identified by WHO as a high priority because of busy travel links with China.
Crucially, no one in Zambia has been able to test for the virus so far. Like most African countries, it has been waiting for a substance known as a reagent, which labs require to confirm whether a patient is infected. Labs in just six of Africa’s 54 countries were equipped as of mid-week. That means a wait of two or more days to know whether a sample shipped to South Africa or even outside the continent tests positive.
Without testing, officials are “just relying on the symptoms” and whether they persist. “But from what we are learning right now, some people show hardly any symptoms at all,” Sinkala said, calling that the hospital’s biggest worry.
As of Friday, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Mike Ryan said 28 labs across Africa could diagnose the new virus.
Several African nations such as Ghana, South Africa and Ethiopia have announced their precautions, including updates on negative test results for suspected cases and demonstrations of surveillance and quarantine capabilities.
Ethiopian Airlines, however, faces questions by some in Africa about why it continues to operate more than 30 China flights a week while other African airlines have suspended theirs.
Adding to the difficulties in diagnosing the new virus are numerous diseases in Africa with symptoms that include fever or coughing or both.
It’s impossible to diagnose the new virus by symptoms alone, Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said, adding that there is a “significant likelihood” that the virus will be confirmed in Africa. And there is a risk that “panic overtakes good public health and good science.”
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