AP
Washington Hispanic:
As richest countries rush to distribute COVID vaccines – 19, Somalia remains one of the few places on the planet where much of the population does not even take the coronavirus seriously. Some fear that this will turn out to be more lethal than anyone imagines.
“Certainly, our people do not use any kind of protective measures, or masks or social distancing,” he said in interview Abdirizak Yusuf Hirabeh, the government director for COVID incidents – 19. “If you move around the city (of Mogadishu) or in the country, nobody even talks about it.” But infections are on the rise, he added.
It is places like Somalia, the Horn of Africa nation devastated by three decades of conflict, that will be the last to receive vaccines against COVID – 19 in significant quantities. With part of the country still controlled by the extremist group Al Shabab linked to al Qaeda, the risk of the virus becoming endemic in some hard-to-reach areas is high – a fear for parts of Africa amid the arrival of vaccines. , which is expected to be slow.
“There is no real or practical research on the matter,” said Hirabhe, who is also the director of the Martini hospital in Mogadishu, the largest in caring for patients with COVID – 19. He saw seven new patients himself the day he spoke to the AP. It acknowledged that neither the facilities nor the equipment are adequate for Somalia to face the virus.
Less than 27. 000 virus tests in Somalia, a country with more than 15 million inhabitants, one of the lowest rates in the world. Less than 4. 800 cases have been confirmed, including at least 130 deaths.
Some fear that the virus will undermine the population like another misdiagnosed, but a deadly, fever.
For the beggar Hassan Mohamed Yusuf, of 45 years, fear has become almost a certainty. “At first we saw this virus as another form of influenza,” he commented.
Later, three of his young children died after having a cough and high fever. As residents of a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict or drought, they did not have access to testing for the coronavirus or adequate care.
At the same time, added Yusuf, the The virus affected his attempts to get money to care for his family as “we cannot get close enough” to people to beg.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the government of Somalia tried implement some measures to limit the spread of the virus, closing schools and canceling all domestic and international flights. Cell phones brought more and more news about the virus.
However, the social distancing that was applied first has almost disappeared from the streets, markets or restaurants of the country. On Thursday, some 30. 000 people packed a stadium in Mogadishu to watch a game of regional soccer, without masks or other measures to protect themselves from the virus.
A factor in favor of the African country is the relative youth of the Somali people, said Dr. Abdurahman Abdullahi Abdi Bilaal, who works in a clinic in the capital. More than 80% of the country’s population is less than 30 years.
“The virus is here, absolutely, but people’s resilience is due to age,” he added. It is the lack of postmortem investigations in the country that prevents the true spread of the virus from being detected, he added.
The next challenge in Somalia is not just obtaining the vaccines against COVID – 19, but to persuade the population to accept them.
This will take time, “just like it took time for our people to believe in vaccines against polio or measles, ”said a concerned Bilaal.