JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI APRIL 4, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic is currently putting a lot of strain on Africa’s health systems beyond its limits in curbing the exponential spread of the disease. Africa’s continued reliance on imported finished generics and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) is likely to slow efforts in treating victims of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, warns the African Union Development Agency New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD).
Already, coronavirus has put a lot of strain on Africa’s healthcare systems beyond its limits in curbing the exponential spread of the disease.
This is happening in the face of the growing prohibition on the export of many medical technologies and priority medicines, the continent is already experiencing shortages of medical products required by medical staff to efficiently fight the spread of the virus.
“The African Union Development Agency-NEPAD has for a long time been raising awareness about this over-dependency,” says Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO of AUDA-NEPAD, adding that it is deemed necessary to set up initiatives such as the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa and its associated business plan to alleviate the phenomenon.
At continental level, the African Union has established a Coronavirus Fund with commitments already totaling 20 million USD while at national level, most African countries are implementing lockdowns, testing of suspected cases and contact tracing.
As African governments implement lockdowns in efforts to contain the spread, there are growing fears that prolonged lockdowns will have a negative impact on socio-economic activities.
“Our short-term response and support to member states at the AUDA-NEPAD is geared towards slowing down the pandemic, knowing more about how COVID-19 is spreading and lessening the socio-economic impact of the pandemic,” says Mayaki.
While ensuring the protection of Africa’s economic foundations, experts say the move is a proactive, efficient and direct response in enhancing continental coverage and improving access to sustainable and resilient health services.
This comprehensive set of responses which if expected to reach their full potential must be fully supported not only by institutional actors but also by the private sector and civil society, within the context of the principles of collective consciousness and shared responsibility.
By launching the COVID-19 Response Plan of Action, AUDA-NEPAD aims to set up, along with other African Union competent institutions, a coordinated and effective plan in addressing this exceptional health crisis.
NAIROBI MARCH 26, 2020 — Kenya, on Thursday confirmed its first Coronavirus (COVID-19) death after a 66-year-old male Kenyan citizen passed on in the afternoon as confirmed cases rise to 31.
Mutahi Kagwe, the country’s health minister, said the patient who was suffering from diabetes arrived in the country on March 13 from South Africa from Swaziland and had been treated at Aga Khan, a private hospital in Nairobi.
“He died this afternoon at an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where he had been admitted,” said Kagwe in a statement.
The ‘sad’ news came barely hours after a 27-year-old Kenyan who had tested positive on March 13 recovered from the virus after a test analysis.
The reported recovery gave Kenya a much-awaited hope against the pandemic, with so far five of its 47 counties having reported confirmed cases.
Amidst increasing fears over the virus, the country’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, when he addressed the nation on Wednesday announced measures meant to help prevent its spread.
So far, since the virus’ outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December last year, it has spread to at least 175 countries and territories as per data compiled by the United States-based Johns Hopkins University.
And with over 2,400 confirmed cases of Covid-19 across the African continent, the continued growth of reported cases poses major challenges for the continent’s under-resourced healthcare services.
Kenya will go into a lock-down beginning Friday March 27 every day from 7 pm to 5 am in an attempt to avoid a catastrophe, said the president, Uhuru Kenyatta when he addressed the nation.
In Kenya, the announced lock-down seeks to confine all persons excluding medical professionals, health workers, critical and essential service providers.
Most African nations have imposed restrictions and taken a range of extraordinary measures to try to combat the crisis. Many flights have been suspended, with entries for travelers from much of Europe and the US effectively impossible.
Other countries that have imposed curfews and lock-down in recent days in Africa include Rwanda and The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
President Uhuru further announced that he and other top Kenyan officials would have salaries, while countries like DRC is seeking to isolate its capital, Kinshasa from the rest of the country, as Ethiopia is planning to release more than 4,000 prisoners as one way of de-congesting crowded jails.
There are fears that lockdown will bring significant hardship for the continent’s poor, many of whom live hand to mouth without formal employment.
African governments are now worried if the virus spreads through crowded cities, and places like refugee camps as its healthcare systems can only deal with a fraction of those needing care from the virus.
Other measures announced by President Uhuru include implementation of a 100 percent tax relief to increase disposable income, with the country’s Labour and Social Protection ministry appropriating $95 million for the elderly, orphans and other vulnerable citizens through cash-transfers to cushion them from adverse economic effects of the pandemic.
KAKAMEGA, KENYA MARCH 21, 2020 — Julius Shilenga Lumwamu struggled 13 months in a series of misdiagnosis beginning June 2006 after discovering a swollen lymph node on his left arm and numbness on small fingers of both his hands.
Then aged 48, and a teacher in one of the local schools in Kakamega, some 390 km north-west of the capital, Nairobi, he would frequent Nairobi to seek medication after exhausting all medical options in his rural district.
“I underwent a series of medical tests, all at my own expenses which involved traveling all the way to Nairobi and back. It was a costly affair, and more painful because I wasted the little money I had without getting to unearth the cause of my sickness,” Lumwamu, 62-year old father of six, who is a cancer survivor tells Ubuntu Times as he attends to his dairy cows in his rural home.
Now a retired teacher, Lumwamu story depicts a sense of hopelessness for millions of citizens living in low and middle-income countries, in which the World Health Organization in its February report dubbed ‘Setting priorities, investing wisely and providing care for all’ predicts a 60 percent increase in cancer cases if the current trend is anything to go by.
“There is a need to step up cancer services in low and middle-income countries. If the current trend on cancer cases continues, the world will witness a 60 percent increase in cancer cases over by 2030,” states the report.
Kenya, like countries in the developing world, has had to focus limited health resources on combating infectious diseases and improving maternal and child health, while health services are not equipped to prevent, diagnose and treat cancers.
According to WHO, the year 2019 saw more than 90 percent of high-income countries reporting that comprehensive treatment services for cancer were available in the public health system compared to less than 15 percent of low-income countries.
Unlike millions of Kenyans who die in silence of cancer, Lumwamu was lucky to access medical help and a financial facility to have him undergo early diagnosis and treatment at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) – Kenya’s oldest and largest public, tertiary referral hospital for the Ministry of Health located in Nairobi.
“It was traumatizing. I was required to part with some 500 USD for manual biopsy, a test in which sample tissue is taken from the body in order to carry out close examination at KNH. I had exhausted a 5,000 USD loaning facility from my teachers SACCO and so became hard to raise the amount,” says Lumwamu, who got help from a family friend who linked him to a private hospital where his biopsy specimen was done.
“Again, I was to take the biopsy specimen to KNH to confirm the type of diagnosis but then again, the facility’s biopsy machine had broken down and so the sample had to be flown to India for further analysis,” he narrates.
What he didn’t know then was that two weeks later, the verified results would prove that he had tested with Non-Hodgkin lymphomas cancer, a cancer that arises from lymphocytes, a kind of white blood cell usually found in blood and lymph nodes.
Sitting in their living room on a quiet village in Kakamega County, Lumwamu and his wife Esther Shimenga said they were so shocked at the results, especially having a loan of 500 USD to repay, with the real treatment cost staring at their stretched financial resources.
“Having received the exact diagnosis, I had to be subjected to chemotherapy treatment twice a month for three months. I now had no other option than approaching a commercial bank for a loan,” Lumwamu, who sourced for a 10,000 USD loan from Equity Bank.
Julius and his wife Esther Shilenga display documents for a loan they took from a commercial bank to facilitate treatment. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times
Despite being a subscriber to the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), this only helped him pay a bill of a meager $43, against a required $500 for biopsy test at the KNH, the public health facility.
“From what I went through, I don’t think the government has ever known exactly how to go about helping especially people facing life-threatening diseases like cancer. People just die quietly, they suffer because the time they are supposed to get treatment, the drugs are not there and if they are available they are very expensive,” he says, adding that for him, he was forced to buy drugs in the city, far from KNH where he was receiving treatment, which would cost him up to $300.
One of the hospital document obtained by Julius while seeking treatment. Accessing cancer medication in Kenya is an expensive one, barring the poor from quality treatment. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) through its recent report titled ‘Cancer Research for Cancer Prevention’ says high-income countries have adopted prevention, early diagnosis, and screening programs, which together with better treatment, have contributed to an estimated 20 percent reduction in the probability of premature mortality between 2000 and 2015, but low-income countries only saw a reduction of five percent.
“The challenge will be for countries to select treatments balancing considerations including cost, feasibility and effectiveness. Each government is tasked with choosing the appropriate innovative cancer therapies, while recognizing that established treatments, many of which are very effective and affordable, can provide benefits for cancer without causing financial hardship,” says the report.
Each time an affluent Kenyan or a politician succumbs to cancer disease, government operatives are quick to fill airwaves with promises of improving the healthcare system, including policies governing cancer management, but fade into thin air a couple of days.
Dr. Catherine Nyongesa, physician and radiation oncologist, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Texas Cancer Centre told Ubuntu Times in an interview that Kenya, compared to years back, has made progress combating cancer.
“Introduction of oncology packages by NHIF since 2016 to cater for treatment be it surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, launching of the National Cancer Control Strategy, formulation of national cancer treatment guidelines 2013, National Cancer Treatment Protocols 2018 and the National Cancer screening guidelines has upped efforts to combat this life-threatening disease,” she said.
In Kenya today, cancer is ranked as the third leading cause of death, exceeded only by infections and heart disease.
The Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN) 2018 findings show that each year, about 47,887 Kenyans get cancer and 32,987 die from the disease. The most common remains breast cancer with 5,985 women and men diagnosed every year compared to 2,864 prostate cases. Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women, in developing countries, constituting a real public health problem.
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