Kiwi public health specialist who worked on Ebola crisis fears for Covid-19 outbreak in Africa

April 5, 2020

Kiwi public health specialist who worked on Ebola crisis says the poorest countries in Africa struggle to provide basic health systems and a COVID-19 outbreak would be devastating.

Between Europe and the United States, Covid-19 has devastated some of the world’s best-resourced countries.

One public health expert says the biggest threat to global health may still be ahead for us as the virus sweeps across Africa.

Dr Penny Milson is a researcher in global public health governance and policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

She also volunteered in Liberia with the Ebola response and told Q+A’s Jack Tame that the coronavirus outbreak would be devastating to West Africa.

“These countries are some of the poorest in the world and they have health systems that are terribly under-resourced at the best of times,” she said.

If coronavirus is not contained in West Africa in the beginning, Ms Milson says it will spread more rapidly and be far more devastating for the region than Ebola was.

For the full interview, watch the video above.

SHARE ME

More Stories