Current Events > WHO bamboozled after Niger seemingly uneffected by Covid as it sweeps Africa.

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This desert capitals main coronavirus ward has been empty for months and hastily erected isolation facilities are gathering dust. Masks are almost unheard of in the streets and many days go by without a single person testing positive for Covid-19. There is so little demand for vaccines that the government has sent thousands of doses abroad.

Welcome to Niger, the land that coronavirus somehow forgot.

At Le Pilier, a restaurant popular with wealthy locals and expats, Italian owner Vittorio Gioni says weekends are full and he is bringing home the same daily takings as two years ago. Business dived in the spring of 2020 when the countrys air borders were closed, but quickly recovered. One of his regulars is Sani Issoufou, the oil minister: Here, we still live like its 2019, he says, with a smile.

As of mid-June, Niger, a country twice the size of Texas with a population a bit bigger than New York state, at 24 million, has confirmed just 194 deaths and about 5,500 Covid cases since its first case was recorded in March 2020. Those are fewer than the tiny Italian enclave of San Marino, population 34,000.We were expecting to be overwhelmed with cases but that never happened, says Adamou Foumakoye Gado, the anesthetist heading the countrys largest Covid-19-dedicated intensive care unit.

The virus has had a very short life here, he says, walking the empty corridors of his 70-bed ward at Niameys recently refurbished General Reference Hospital. With no intensive-care patients at his facility since April, Mr. Gado is being redeployed to work on the more serious impacts of malaria. Now, I am the one being furloughed!In late May, Niger even took the unusual step of lending 100,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to Ivory Coast, another West African country with roughly the same populationbut four times smaller geographically and with 10 times more cases. Niger has prioritized vaccinating essential workers, and little of the general population has had the vaccine.Meanwhile, at Niameys main testing center, several days often go by without anyone testing positive. Four large tents set up to isolate patients at the beginning of the pandemic are now home to a pair of muddy rubber boots and some plastic wash buckets.

Nigers apparent escape from the worst of the pandemic is in striking contrast with many parts of the African continent, where WHO has warned infections are on track to surpass their previous peak in January. In Uganda, situated on the equator, hospitals have become so overwhelmed with new Covid-19 cases in recent weeks that the sick are dying while waiting for a bed.

Since the virus first appeared in Africa in early 2020, infection rates have been low in the Sahela 3,000-mile semiarid territory on the southern shore of the Sahara that also includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. For the whole duration of the pandemic, Covid-positive results in Niger averaged 4.5% for a total of about 125,000 swabs, compared with countries with similar testing levels per capita, Afghanistan and Madagascar with 16% and 30%.The countrys low infection rates have piqued the interests of epidemiologists and WHO officials, who have concluded Niger is one of the worlds most hostile environments for Covid-19. The Sahels crushingly hot and dry climate is one of the least hospitable on the planet.

The climate is very harmful to the survival of the virus in the body, says Dr. Gado. There is a silver lining to our misfortune.Academic research shows high levels of sun exposure and heat sharply reduce the risk of contamination from the virus, both through airborne particles and surface exposure.

A simulation on the U.S. Department of Healths website, that uses median ultraviolet exposure, temperature and humidity rates to compare New York to Niamey, shows the viruss transmissibility halves twice as fast under the Nigerien capitals climatic conditions.Beyond the climate, Niger also has the youngest population in the worldhalf of its citizens are under 15and most of its citizens live in isolated settlements, another barrier to the disease.

Niger has large pastoralist communities with considerable time spent outdoors in good ventilation which also plays a significant role in reducing transmission, said Osman Dar, a global health-systems expert at Chatham House, a U.K. think tank.

Experts say policy also played a part: Authorities locked down, banned communal prayer in mosques and closed borders in March 2020, five months before nations like the U.K. started to restrict international travel.

We killed a fly with a hammer, said President Mohamed Bazoum, who was then interior minister. The coronavirus arrived but it never prospered.

Covid-19 is just the latest plague to arrive in a region beset by crises: An Islamist insurgency has killed over 8,000 and displaced one million, global warming is depleting precious agricultural resources and many locals die prematurely from other infectious diseases.

In March, jihadists killed 137 villagers in Nigers southwest, the deadliest by suspected jihadists in the countrys history. In June, the terrorists also massacred 160 in neighboring Burkina Fasoas many as recorded Covid-19 deaths in the country during the entire pandemic.While Niger has largely escaped the virus epidemiological impact, its economy has been devastated. The number of people in extreme povertyalready almost half the populationincreased by 400,000 as a result of Covid-19 restrictions in 2020, the World Bank estimates. On the capitals streets, the number of people begging for spare change or food scraps has surged since last year, local officials say.

Taxi driver Moussa Soumoula is less worried about getting a vaccine than where his next fare will come from.

Out of 300 people in my neighborhood, only one tested positive, he says. His main headache is to cover $200 in arrears for his childrens school fees after the government imposed restrictions on the number of passengers he can accept for each ride.

The lockdown crunch has snared some of the countrys top celebrities. Local rock star Omara Bombino Moctar, who in 2019 spent nine months touring venues from London to New York, is now scraping a living strumming for a dozen guests in a private garden.

Covid never really made it to Niger, he says. But we still feel were living in a hole.



The idea of empty covid wards/emergency covid facilities seems like a bad joke/dirty pipe dream in the UK

5,500 cases from a Population of 24 million

That's crazy

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Underreported cases?

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apolloooo posted...

Underreported cases?

Maybe, as it says they have a younger population so a lot of people might have it and not know

but even with that in mind, there's no way a lack of people dying or wards sitting empty or all the people being tested being clean can ALL be shoddy reporting

They spent money prepping for this they didn't need to and have been sending away their vaccines to other parts of Africa

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metallica846 posted...

This article is eerily similar to many countries last year with similar headlines. Then it hits.

It was the case with my country too. You started having proud nationalist idiots saying "LOL WE (COUNTRY) ARE NOT LIKE THE OTHER COUNTRIES! OUR PEOPLE ARE GREAT AND WE ARE IMMUNE!"

BOOM the line scaled vertically

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Half of Niger's citizens are under 15.

Hospitalizations (23 states and NYC reported)*
Children were 1.3%-3.6% of total reported hospitalizations, and between 0.1%-1.9% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization
Mortality (43 states, NYC, PR and GU reported)*
Children were 0.00%-0.26% of all COVID-19 deaths, and 8 states reported zero child deaths
In states reporting, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death

No one is bamboozled.

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apolloooo posted...

It was the case with my country too. You started having proud nationalist idiots saying "LOL WE (COUNTRY) ARE NOT LIKE THE OTHER COUNTRIES! OUR PEOPLE ARE GREAT AND WE ARE IMMUNE!"

BOOM the line scaled vertically

There is 0 bragging from Niger or the Article

In fact if you actually read it, it goes into great detail about how fucked Niger is

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DocDelicious posted...

Half of Niger's citizens are under 15.

No one is bamboozled.

hospitalization and amount of cases aren't the same thing dude

Of course not many kids are hospitalized from covid . But tons still caught it

But in Niger none of the kids even have it

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Woah....young, active individuals have stronger immune systems than those from inactive, overweight/obese countries.

Never would have guessed

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