Managing COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the twilight zones

Against the backdrop of strident discussions and debates about COVID-19 safety measures, most sub-Saharan African countries continue to slowly revert to their ordinary lives. Despite the seemingly disregard for suggested measures, most of these countries continue to record little or no COVID-19 cases. For some, it is because of the lack of testing equipment and the limitedness in their testing procedures.  To others, COVID-19 is a conspiracy and mostly affecting the well-to-do economies – such individuals tend to believe that if the governments in sub-Saharan Africa are into the conspiracy and playing the World Health Organization (WHO) by inflating the number of cases with the intention of receiving financial support that could be diverted to something else.

In April of 2020, for example, the government of Zambia ordered the fumigation of public spaces such as open markets without the consent of the citizens. This ‘good-willed’ act enraged the people of Solwezi (the Northwestern part of Zambia) who believed that the government, in collaboration with Western countries, was trying to infect them with COVID-19 so that they could be for experiments in the search for vaccines. This rage came after two French scientists announced that Africa was a fertile ground for testing the vaccines. Several other issues underscored the debates regarding this situation: First, Zambia and many other African countries were forced to close schools, not because it was in their best interest, but because Western countries were closing all their schools. (Note that shopping malls and other public spaces with high infection rates, including bars were not closed at that point). Some pundits argued that closing schools in sub-Sahara Africa were riskier in the sense that most students mingle with many people during holidays than during school days. This is in opposition to most Western countries where students spend almost all their time at home or with their families during holidays.

Second, many others argued why it was necessary to close businesses when they had only recorded 10 infections by that time and only one death. “How many people die of malaria every day?” A community media journalist asked during an interview. What this meant was that people in Africa were more affected by other diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS than COVID-19. Yet, the attention that was given to COVID-19 seemed beyond issues that continued to ravage their countries. This explains why the controversial Tanzanian President, John Pombe Magufuli hesitated to close his businesses. While emphasizing safety, President Magufuli encouraged people to continue with businesses and pray. And indeed, although some scholars suggest that the government of Tanzania had been hiding the number of infections, Tanzania was declared COVID-19 free by early June 2020. Further compounding suggests that Tanzania had also found a cure, which of course, the World Health Organization had not approved. However, most people in Tanzania and some other African countries were inclined to believe their governments, given the fact that the answers from the West were still in a twilight zone. For example, President Magufuli who himself is a Chemist was able to disprove the COVID-19 testing kits wrong when he sent some specimens of papaya, goat, engine oil, etc. with human names, and the results came back either positive or inconclusive. Most people questioned whether the recorded COVID-19 cases were indeed true.

 A study conducted in Zambia and Tanzania among community media journalists (Gondwe, Ferrucci, & Tandoc, 2020 – In press) tend to support the argument that most people in sub-Saharan Africa did not fully believe in the existence of COVID-19. The study was done among 20 journalists working in community media outlets (note that these are journalists as well as community members). The aim was to determine how they navigated through the COVID-19 conflicting information from the government that supported Western strategies vs the local people that considered government information as imbued in conspiracy theories and fake information. Accordingly, the common narrative seemed to suggest that people in Zambia and Tanzania were skeptical about the COVID 19. As one journalist had indicated:  "I am a journalist and one working on grassroots, but surely in my search, I don’t know anyone that has been infected by COVID-19. I have inquired from friend journalists working in places where several cases have been reported, and no one knows any patient. Honestly, this gives me a lot of doubts about whether our governments are telling the truth or not…I think I am inclined to believe that they are strategically inflating the numbers to solicit funds from either the World Health Organization (WHO) or other donors such as Bill Gates who seems to be engrained in the conspiracy".

 In a similar way, another journalist indicated suspicion in regard to why the government and other western media were against herbal remedies arguing that, "We have used these herbal remedies since time immemorial…there is no cure presented to us but the government or the West such as the US…therefore, having the government to force me to discourage people from using herbal remedies is unrealistic….it’s not like they are using poison, but things eucalyptus leaves, aloe vera, ginger, lemons, and honey….what is wrong with that? I think I smell a rat".

 Another journalist expressed disappointment with African governments in their failure to support herbal remedies as cures: "I am disappointed with African governments, I am disappointed with the African Center for Disease Control, and I am disappointed with the toothless African Union…when Madagascar came up with the presumable cure for COVID-19, African countries should have been at the forefront to promote it…allowing the African CDC to do rigorous tests, and subsequently selling it to the West. But because the West had cast doubt, the rest of the African countries joined casting stones on Madagascar…It’s a shame! How blind are we that we cannot see that the developed nations are trying to be the first to sell the vaccine and cure? What is wrong with us?"

In short, many people in most sub-Saharan countries are skeptical about the existence of the COVID-19 in Africa, about the roles that their governments are playing in the fight against the pandemic, and the overall intention of either the West or China in their quest to mitigate the pandemic. For many, several underlying intentions have not been revealed. This leads to disputed speculations that unfortunately, most people cannot afford to ignore or assume a response to fill the gaps in questions. The biggest question is, why is Africa not ravaged given the fact that they are more prone if the suggested ways of being infected are true? One journalist had made the following speculation:

You know, it is likely that our immune system is much stronger given the fact that we are constantly exposed to various diseases and viruses…look at our environment, it is almost impossible not to be exposed to different viruses…while that in itself sounds bad, it might also be a blessing in disguise in the sense that we become stronger and immune…For example, look at the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C) that is poor and with a population of 89,561,403. It has only recorded 200 deaths…indicating only 0.0002…just imagine that.  

Nonetheless, with the fear instilled in the people of Sub-Saharan Africa by the Western media, many have continued to resort to herbal medicines despite their governments debunking them as fake. For some scholars, what is fake is contingent on the situation and who is saying it (Madrid-Morales, et. al., 2020; Gondwe, 2018). Unfortunately, most governments have a dark history with its people, therefore, many are free to express themselves in matters that have a less direct link to the government. Therefore, people did not seem to critic their governments when they said the truth about how they felt regarding the COVID-19 if compared to talking about local politics.

Bibliography:

Kerunga, J., Rowe, E., & Gondwe, G. (2020). Journalism Credibility in the digital age–Examining shifts in paradigms. Available at SSRN 3641943.

Gondwe, G., & Some, E. (2020). Social media and catharsis in Africa: Examining the role of WhatsApp in venting stress in women. Journal of Internet and Information Systems, 9(1), 1-7.

Gondwe, G., Muchangwe, R., & Mwaya, J. E. (2020). Motivations for Social Media Use and Consumption in Zambian Online Platforms. In Analyzing Global Social Media Consumption (pp. 204-215). IGI Global.

Gondwe, G. (2018). News Believability & Trustworthiness on African Online Networks: An Experimental Design. International Communication Research Journal, 53(2), 51-74.