Comesa states demonstrate resilience to Covid-19

Business Reporter
THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) says its member States among other countries in the continent have demonstrated “remarkable” resilience to Covid-19, defying earlier predictions of the disease’s impact.

Comesa noted that at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was predicted that most of the health systems in Africa and the Comesa region would be overwhelmed by the unprecedented spread of the virus.

“Anecdotal evidence based on country-specific interventions, however, indicates that countries in the region have demonstrated remarkable resilience defying earlier predictions,” said the bloc in a statement.

According to an analysis conducted by the governance, peace and security unit at the Comesa secretariat, stringent measures that regional States put in place including mandatory quarantine, curfews, closure of social and entertainment venues, closure of schools, encouragement of basic hygiene measures among other interventions, played a big role in containing a surge in infections.

“For the Comesa region with relatively weak health systems characterised by inadequate health personnel, inadequate equipment, inadequate budgets and a high burden of infectious diseases (such as Malaria, TB, HIV, Ebola), it was expected that the continued spread of the virus would overburden the health systems in the region,” the report said.

Reforms in the health sector, whereby governments have made policy commitments to implement Universal Health Care (UHC), have also worked well towards forestalling the earlier predicted surge.

The UHC is premised on the idea that every citizen should receive health services they need without financial burden. Regional data analysis further indicates that most governments in the region have introduced health reforms that have led to improvements in health services.

For example, Tunisia, Seychelles, Rwanda, Mauritius and Egypt have already rolled the UHC programme with positive impacts on reduction in mortality rates, improved life expectancy and public health expenditure.

The report notes that a majority of the regional states have strived to allocate 15 percent of public expenditure to the health sector and with the continued spread of the coronavirus, this has triggered more financial investments in the sector. “Countries in the region have increased health funding to deal with the emergencies associated with the spread of the Covid-19.

“Extra budget allocations have been provided by governments to enhance for instance surveillance, purchase of medical supplies, construction of isolation centres, recruitment of more health personnel among others.”

Notwithstanding, countries in the region have registered important milestones in the improvement of healthcare since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 as part of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, said Comesa.