The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr
Samson Ayokunle, says though Africa lacks standard healthcare facilities and
the technological wherewithal to fight the coronavirus pandemic, yet the
continent continues to enjoy God’s mercy as evident in the low Covid infections
and associated deaths recorded in Nigeria and other African countries.
Ayokunle was reacting to a statement made by American
business magnate, Bill Gates, who said he was yet to understand why Covid cases
and fatalities still remain low in Africa.
The billionaire philanthropist had in his 2020 Year In
Review Notes titled, ‘These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020’,
said, “One thing I’m happy to have been wrong about—at least, I hope I was
wrong—is my fear that COVID-19 would run rampant in low-income countries.
“So far, this hasn’t been true. In most of sub-Saharan
Africa, for example, case rates and death rates remain much lower than in the
US or Europe and on par with New Zealand, which has received so much attention
for its handling of the virus. The
hardest-hit country on the continent is South Africa—but even there, the case
rate is 40 per cent lower than in the US, and the death rate is nearly 50 per
cent lower.
