By Bisola Adeyemo
The Senegalese health ministry, has vowed to ramp up vaccinations after welcoming fresh deliveries from China’s Sinopharm and Johnson & Johnson as well as a shipment of AstraZeneca doses under the COVAX global distribution programme.
Like many African countries facing the third wave of infections, Senegal is more vulnerable because only a few people have been vaccinated.
Overall, cases in Africa have exploded in recent weeks, hitting a fresh record of nearly 50,000 new daily infections in early July.
Reuters reported that Senegal, which until this month had recorded fewer than 44,000 cases and 1,166 deaths, has registered more than 15,000 cases and 139 deaths since the start of July, according to health ministry figures.
Dr Khardiata Diallo, Head of infectious disease at Fann Hospital in Dakar, said, after comfortably weathering the first two waves of the virus, health services were now stretched dangerously thin.
“Patients, particularly young ones, are arriving in respiratory distress,” Diallo said, her voice cracking with exhaustion. “We’ve never had this number of cases, deaths and severe cases. Frankly, this third wave threatens to drown us.”
Many infections outside clinics were going undiagnosed, while post mortems were not routine, she said.