Africa: Milder COVID-19 Pandemic than Expected Puzzles Experts

The low recorded infection rates could also be related to this low average age on the continent. That is because young people are more often asymptomatic. Because they do not become noticeably ill, they are less likely to be tested and examined, says Chu — especially when the country’s health care system is shaky anyway and testing capacity is low.

“The lack of testing capacity makes it extremely difficult to say how much the pandemic will actually affect the populations of African countries,” says Chu.

Parasitic Boost to Immune System?
The analysis published in Science says immune systems influenced by African environments could be another reason for the comparatively mild course of the pandemic. “It is increasingly recognized that the immune system is shaped not only by genetics but also by environmental factors, such as exposure to microorganisms and parasites. This educates the immune system to protect against invading pathogens not only specifically but also nonspecifically,” the researchers write.

This could decisively mitigate the severity of an infectious disease and be another reason why the expected high number of victims in Africa has so far failed to materialize.

 The immunologist and parasitologist Achim Hörauf is researching this hypothesis at the University Hospital in Bonn. He is especially interested in worms, which live more or less harmoniously as parasites in the bodies of people in many African countries.

This harmony is possible only because in many cases the worms do not trigger a strong immune response. They avoid it by signaling to the immune system with certain secretions that there is no reason for it to get het up. “It could be that the COVID-19 infection is better tolerated this way,” says Hörauf. An excessively violent response from the immune system can lead to severe courses of COVID-19.

While parasites may make a milder course of infection more likely, non-infectious conditions such as cardiovascular illnesses, obesity and type 2 diabetes often cause big problems. And these are typical diseases above all in Western industrialized countries. At least, for now: In the urban regions of African states, these lifestyle diseases have already found their way into the population. 

Collateral Damage
But although the expected complete catastrophe has not yet occurred, SARS-CoV-2 has still had devastating consequences for Africa. “The virus indirectly has enormous effects on many people in the African states. The collateral damage caused by the pandemic measures could be much more acute in many countries than the direct damage caused by the virus,” says physician Chu. The youngest ones are hit the hardest here, Chu says, adding that food and medication shortages often have fatal consequences for children in particular.

The organization UNAIDS, for example, reported back in May that there were bottlenecks in the supply of antiretroviral drugs, which are essential for the treatment of HIV. The closure of national borders and the temporary suspension of air traffic opened up a supply gap that was exacerbated by the fact that HIV drugs were used to treat COVID-19 patients as well.

UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) have predicted that this situation could lead to an additional 500,000 AIDS deaths. The aid organization Oxfam warned in July that measures imposed to stem the spread of the pandemic could result in 12,000 starvation deaths per day around the globe by the end of the year.

Six of the 10 “worst hunger hotspots” named by Oxfam are in Africa.

This article is published courtesy of Deutsche Welle (DW).