How will Africa deal with coronavirus? | Inside Story

It's taken coronavirus longer to reach Africa than other parts of the world. But experts are warning of a possible large-scale outbreak on the world's poorest continent of 1.2 billion people. And if Europe or the U.S. were struggling to contain the pandemic, the potential consequences across the continent are possibly devastating, if not catastrophic. One example: Mali has 56 ventilators for a population of 17 million. Africa is still reporting low numbers of cases compared to Europe and China, but that could change fast. Coronavirus has reached almost every nation on the continent. And as we see here, the infection rate and the number of deaths are increasing. For most African countries the question is not how and when do we test - at the moment they simply can't - the question now is when do people start dying?

Presenter: Peter Dobbie

Guests: Abdulsalami Nisidi, Provost of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Africa in Bayelsa State Nigeria. David Heymann, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. David Owiro, Founder and Principal Consultant at the Africa Development Think Tank.

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