The shortage of reliable data afflicts many African nations, with some governments reluctant to acknowledge epidemics or to expose their crumbling health systems to outside scrutiny. According to the latest data collated by Reuters, Africa, with a population of 1.3 billion people, had over 493,000 confirmed cases and 11,600 deaths. The WHO organised a call on April 23 with African health ministers to discuss, among other things, a lack of information sharing, Yao said. Burundi was one of the first African countries to shut its borders in March, which seemed to slow the virus’ spread initially. But even that is not possible in most of Africa because data from previous years is lacking.

Source: bd News24 July 08, 2020 09:22 UTC