COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent: forecasts of cumulative cases, new infections, and mortality

Yohannes Kinfu; Uzma Alam; Tom Achoki

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint Lastly, but equally important in the African context, the global health community and governments addressing the COVID-19 pandemic should be inclusive in their efforts because the efficacy of a response to any emergency is only as good as its weakest link. It is therefore important that governments include marginalized communities, such as refugees, migrants and internally displaced populations (IDPs) in their policies and actions. Across Africa, approximately 12.3 million people remain forcibly displaced, including 8.1 million internally displaced people and 4.2 million refugees. (55) Moreover, Sub-Saharan Africa alone hosts more than 26% of the world's refugee population. (56) (57) These populations are likely to face a different set of constraints that restricts their ability to prevent themselves from getting infected and accessing health care. The fact that they also live in under difficult circumstances means that governments across the region should maintain critical supply corridors for humanitarian assistance and address the needs of the most vulnerable within their borders. In the longer term this pandemic should also be a call for African governments to further strengthen engagement with international humanitarian actors in order to foster strong partnership building on local capacities. Within this supra-national context, the issue of 'livelihood corridor' also needs to be looked at carefully and more broadly, given that AfCFTA (the African Continental Free Trade Agreement) which is expected to govern trade and flow of goods and services in the region will come into effect on July 1 2020 (African Union 2020). Hence, current and planned NPIs in the region need to consider such regional initiatives to ensure that responses to the pandemic at country and regional level are coherent and able to balance saving the lives and livelihood of the people of the African continent.