Coronavirus: Only 3 ventilators available in Central African Republic

Global health leaders hold grave fears for one country with a vulnerable population of five million and only three working ventilators.

Experts have grave fears for the Central African Republic and its population of almost five million as the country faces the deadly threat of the coronavirus.

The country, which has been significantly ravaged by years of civil war, has only three ventilators to service its population of almost five million.

Six cases of coronavirus have been recorded but numbers are not considered accurate due to tests not being widely available in the country.

Inside the landlocked African country, which is bordered by six other countries, only 100 testing kits are available if you can make it to the capital of Bangui.

The Central African Republic is a landlocked country in the centre of the African continent.

There is also a severe lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the country for health and aid workers. In Bangui, there is only enough PPE stock for a month, and outside of Bangui, there is no PPE, at all, according to a recent report from the United Nations.

The country also has a severe shortage of medical equipment and personnel. In the capital, there are three ventilators and one oxygen concentrator — these stocks are all that’s available to service the entire country.

Throughout the Central African Republic, access to clean water is limited, and for hundreds of thousands of displaced people who live in crowded camps, social distancing is not an option.

The Central African Republic is “one of the least prepared countries to face a COVID-19 outbreak”, according to the United Nations co-ordinated Appeal, a document planning the “Global Humanitarian Response Plan to COVID-19” from April to December.

Bangui has scant medical supplies and few testing kits available to service the entire country. Picture: iStock

This photo from 2018 shows a child being weighed at a paediatric complex in Bangui. Picture: Florent Vergnes/AFP

Before the threat posed by coronavirus, a potentially deadly and highly infectious virus, the country already had 2.2 million people in need of medical treatment according to the UN.

Putting the local populations at increased risk are a limited access to water, sanitation and infrastructure and the lack of police or other national authorities to enforce measures like social distancing.

Other risks are also at play: the UN report suggests that about 70 per cent of the country’s health care services are provided by external humanitarian organisations, and that medical infrastructure and health care services are “extremely limited” in the country.

It means if the virus does spread throughout the population, there will be huge challenges providing critical care.

Suspension of international flights will further delay aid from accessing the country care, and those who do arrive will be delayed to accessing those in need, by mandatory self-quarantines.

In the country, some 695,000 people are displaced and they are considered to be those among the most at risk in the country. Those, along with the elderly, disabled and children are considered the most exposed to the virus in the country.

“COVID-19 has the potential to tear through the Central African Republic at lightning spread if the country doesn’t get the support it needs to adequately protect itself against the virus,” said David Manan, the Norwegian Refugee Council Country Director in the Central African Republic (CAR).

“Three ventilators in a country of five million people is setting the country up for catastrophe.

“And this could be replicated across the world’s poorest countries, where health infrastructure is virtually non-existent.

“When rich nations are in panic mode stating that thousands of ventilators will not be enough, it just brings to light how poorer nations like the Central African Republic don’t stand a chance in the fight against COVID-19.”

WHAT IS BEING DONE?

The UN launched a National Emergency Cell, supported by the World Health Organisation to educate the humanitarian community and host campaigns to disseminate information to vulnerable communities in the Central African Republic.

They’ve also prepared a “light emergency preparedness and response plan” for different phases of the pandemic, according to the report. However, the report says there are a number of gaps in their response, and ongoing challenges faced in the Central African Republic.

In the capital there is one treatment centre for patients diagnosed with COVID-19. The centre has 14 beds. There is currently no other facilities or isolation centres for patients with mild or moderate cases of coronavirus.

The country also has 26 priority entry points, and only four of those have functioning health controls, according to the UN report.