COVID-19 was a synonym of tragedy and chaos in the Northern Hemisphere. In Africa, however, even the common cold might be more serious. What is happening?
I work in a Biomedical Research Institution in Accra Ghana, that also offers COVID-19 testing services (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research). Url: https://www.ghanahealthservice.org/covid19/accredited_labs.php
There are many opportunities to conduct research to better answer this question. Collaborations are welcome.
No COVID-19, no disease, no death due to it!
The incidence of COVID-19 in Africa may be low, but let's accept a reality, many countries do not have the resources to test the people and people may be dying with COVID-19 without being detected.
Example is South Africa, where more testing is detecting more cases and more deaths attributable to COVID-19 pandemic.
A Facebook friend of mine, Amadou Toumani, said:
"First lets look at our demographics and then we can check the composition of our society. With a very young population and a high rural population there is a lower spread of the virus compared to other places."
What do you think?
I think the most important factor for the relatively low death rate is demography. The population is younger on average than in Europe and America.
A factor that I cannot assess in quantitative detail but that might also play a role is the higher genetic variability of the population. Homo sapiens originated in Africa and spread throughout the world later. The genes of the oldest part of mankind -- living in Africa -- had more time to develop variations than that of the younger parts living in the other continents. But higher genetic variability usually means higher resistance to new diseases, because the gene pool is more likely to be able to produce better antibodies against the virus than in populations with lower variability. So Africans may have a stronger resistance against the virus on average. Whether this idea can explain the appreciable differences in response to the disease between the continents, I don't know, but it does not seem impossible that genetic variability contributes to the effect.