The study "Planning for the Worst and Expecting for the Best: Covid-19 Forecast for Sub-Saharan Africa", by the Institute for Global Transformation, founded by the former British Prime Minister, contains an analysis of five combinations of government intervention and compares their impacts based on the trajectory of 18 Sub-Saharan African countries, including Angola and Mozambique.
The authors, OB Sisay, Maryam Abdullah and Elizabeth Smith, conclude that the best option is a combination of 20 per cent social distancing and 80 per cent protection of vulnerable people, i.e. restricting movement or limiting contact between people by wearing masks or avoiding gatherings and keeping the elderly, diabetics, hypertensive, among others, in isolation.
This strategy, they calculated, can help to halve the number of deaths (52 per cent), reduce the number of cases of infection by 31 per cent, reduce the peak of hospitalizations by 66 per cent and the use of beds in intensive care by 67 per cent.
In Africa, there are more than 12,000 confirmed deaths in more than 520,000 infected in 54 countries, according to the latest pandemic statistics on that continent.
However, the report found a large variation between the forecasts of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), which creates great uncertainty as to how the pandemic will evolve.
While the WHO of Africa predicts a final number of 87,000 deaths out of 145 million cases of infection as a new coronavirus, resulting in a very low case fatality rate, an LSHTM model that looks at 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa suggests more than one million deaths, even with containment measures.
"Currently, the numbers for Africa seem relatively low," admits Tony Blair in a statement, admitting that "it may be that, as some suggest, the type of virus is weaker or the young population in Africa is more resistant.
But he adds, "it may also be simply a time lag, and the disease may start to accelerate.
Other measures suggested in the report include public information campaigns, adapting testing systems to available capacity and resources, giving priority, for example, to health professionals and other workers in critical services, and transparency in the publication of real-time data.
