World Health Organization or WHO is scaling up coronal virus preparedness efforts in Africa to implement recommendations outlined by the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee.
The Committee recommends that all countries should be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing and prevention of onward spread of novel corona virus.
WHO Director-General Dr Matshidiso Moeti in a statement CRN saw, declared the novel corona virus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
He sent out a guidance note to all countries on how to prepare for a possible novel corona virus outbreak.
‘It is critical that countries step up their readiness and in particular put in place effective screening mechanisms at airports and other major points of entry to ensure that the first cases are detected quickly,’ said Dr Moeti.
He added that ‘the quicker countries can detect cases, the faster they will be able to contain an outbreak and ensure the novel corona virus does not overwhelm health systems’.
Rapid confirmation or ruling out novel corona virus cases, establishing a platform for isolating suspected or confirmed cases, passing good information to the public and pre-positioning supplies are all important actions for countries to undertake.
WHO has identified top priority countries, including Algeria, Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, the DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan and Zambia.
Active screening at airports has been established in a majority of these countries and while they will be WHO first areas of focus.
WHO recommends people to practice good hand and respiratory hygiene and safe food practices, including washing hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub, covering the mouth and nose with a tissue or sleeve when coughing.
It also advises everybody to avoid close contact with anyone with flu-like avoiding direct unprotected contact with live animals.
As of the 30 January 2020, there were 7818 confirmed cases globally, with the vast majority in China.