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The Gambia government
extended its state of emergency regulations by a month and half on April 3 -
asking people to stay at home without giving them incentives - so it's business as usual for daily wage earners at the Serekunda
market (pictured) Photo Credit: @JoofMS | TNBES | April 7, 2020
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The Gambia is setting up 1000 hospital beds in
response to a projected rise in coronavirus cases, Health Minister Dr. Ahmadou
Lamin Samateh said on Friday.
The West African nation could see more than 100,
000 coronavirus cases in the next three months, according to a special
committee at National Assembly set up as part of the country’s broad response
to the pandemic.
“There is a projection which suggests if The Gambia
reaches [its] peak, we expect three thousand hospitalizations, which is a huge
number,” Dr. Samateh told a press briefing in Banjul on Friday.
“We are trying to get a thousand hospital beds
ready just for emergency, and to increase the number as and when we need them,”
he said.
The Gambia confirmed its 10th case of
the coronavirus on Sunday, seven are receiving treatment, two have recovered
and one has died.
Dr. Samateh warned Gambians and non-Gambian
residents “not to be complacent” about the new coronavirus (officially named
Covid-19), a contagious respiratory disease which emerged from China’s city of
Wuhan in mid-December 2019.
So far, The Gambian population of 2.3 million has
seen fewer cases of the Covid-19 virus, but Dr. Samateh said people should be
aware that countries where the virus has a foothold started with only few
cases, before they began seeing an explosion in cases and deaths.
The Gambia’s projected peak infections were made
based on studies on the trends and patterns of the coronavirus outbreak in
other countries and on various models devised by various expert groups.
“Those figures are based on those projections [and]
we are getting prepared,” said Dr. Samateh, who admitted that “our health
system is weak and we pray we don’t to get a hundred thousand infections.”
He said it was important to strengthen the health
system, get more people trained and put forward strategies to be able to deal
with the expected high number of cases.
Worst affected
A new report released on Friday by the UN Economic
Commission for Africa said the continent could see up to 300,000 deaths from
the coronavirus this year under the best-case scenario, and up to 3.3 million
deaths and 1.2 billion infections under the worst-case scenario.
The UN agency’s report said Africa could see more
than 122 million infections even with “intense social distancing” under the
best-case scenario.
As of April 19, global infections reached more than
2.2 million people and over 152, 000 deaths since the outbreak began late last
year.
Europe with more than a million confirmed cases and
the Americas with nearly a million cases are the worst affected regions. Cases
in the Africa region are about 14, 000, according to the World Health
Organisation.
Written by Modou S. Joof
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