Current State and Priorities

On February 14, Africa’s first case of COVID-19 was reported in Egypt. By August, Africa surpassed more than 1 million diagnosed cases of COVID-19. Wide disparities exist in the scale of and response to the outbreak: more than half of reported cases are in South Africa, while Tanzania has controversially declared their country free of cases in June. Across the continent, initial optimism about a lower mortality rate (compared to that seen in Europe and the Americas) of around 2 percent has been tempered by reports of increased natural cause deaths, raising the possibility that neglect of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other infectious and endemic diseases is having adverse health outcomes. The panel will explore i) the current state of the pandemic across Africa; ii) the disparity between countries like South Africa and Tanzania in their responses to COVID-19; and iii) lessons learned since detection of the first case in February as well as what is still unknown about the virus’ spread on the continent.