Responding to COVID-19 in Africa: Using data to find a balance

Pages
18pp
Date published
07 May 2020
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Epidemics & pandemics, Health, COVID-19
Countries
Cameroon, Kenya, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda
Organisations
Partnership for Evidence-Based Response to COVID-19 (PERC)
Link
PERC website

African Union (AU) Member States responded quickly to COVID-19 with public health and social measures (PHSMs)—the most effective tools for combating a rapidly spreading infectious disease in the absence of effective treatments or vaccines— and this has given them an early advantage in suppressing the virus. But humankind’s struggle with the microbe will be a marathon, not a sprint, and AU Member States are facing a crisis that will continue to unfold over many months.

In this report, the Partnership for EvidenceBased Response to COVID-19 (PERC), a consortium of global public health organizations and private sector firms, brings together findings from a survey conducted March 29-April 17, 2020 in 28 cities across 20 AU Member States, along with epidemiological measures of disease transmission and indicators of population movements and unrest, among others. Synthesized, these data provide a first-of-its-kind snapshot of baseline conditions in Africa during this rapidly evolving pandemic.