By Kemo Cham
The Africa region will need all the support it can get to tackle the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and come out of it successfully, Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio has said.
Bio told a meeting of African leaders and industry experts earlier this week that the continent had been making progress prior to the pandemic but that the disruption caused by it would “definitely have a great impact on our economies.”
“We have to be frank with Africa and support Africa to go through this particular pandemic in a way that we can resume normal activities,” Bio said during the conference that was held virtually on Tuesday May 19.
The conference organized by the New York Forum Institute, a US-based Think Tank, was meant to discuss Africa’s COVID-19 response. It was designed to highlight the lessons the world could learn from Africa, to address the socio-economic risks and highlight visions for the post-Covid health world order.
The conference was held on the theme: “Resilient World: An African Call for A New World Order”.
Besides President Bio, four other African heads of state participated in the event: President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, President Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast and President Macky Sall of Senegal.
President Bio recalled Sierra Leone’s experience with the 2014-2016 West African Ebola epidemic, noting its devastating effect on the country. But the Sierra Leonean leader said his country had been able to learn a lot from that experience in dealing with the COVID-19, citing the fact that it recorded its index case of the ongoing pandemic late due to measures proactively put in place by his government.
Bio also shared the benefit the country gained from involving people with experience fighting Ebola into the Covid-19 response efforts.
Copyright © 22/05/20 Politico Online
