“Infections and deaths remain comparatively low on the continent, with a total of 50,000 cases and more than 2,000 deaths. But the WHO said on Thursday as many as 190,000 could die on the African continent in the coming 12 months without containment measures.
COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus, "could become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region", said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO chief for Africa.
But with lockdowns unsustainable, African countries need to come up with other strategies, wrote Salma Abdalla and Sandro Galea at the Council on Foreign Relations.