This 12 months, the authors of that research launched a letter warning older folks and people with power medical circumstances to steer clear of the Magal, and urged those that attended to put on masks and wash arms.
“Throughout the occasion, streets across the Grand Mosque and the overall market current a particularly excessive density of inhabitants,” the letter stated. “All these circumstances are very more likely to favor the transmission of respiratory pathogens amongst pilgrims.”
Washing arms could also be tough. The variety of folks utilizing Touba’s water multiplies through the Magal, and most years, there are water shortages. This 12 months too, taps are operating dry, the native press has reported, apart from a dribble late at evening.
Many African nations have reported caseloads and deaths linked to Covid-19 which might be a lot decrease than in different continents, significantly in Europe and North America. Though many circumstances might have been missed due to low testing ranges, epidemiologists say that the younger median age of the continent is probably going a big issue, and that some nations’ scorching climate and tendency to reside a lot of life open air might play a job. Research are underway to check the speculation that earlier publicity to different coronaviruses might have strengthened some folks’s immune programs.
Like many West African nations, Senegal had good protocols in place for contact tracing, partly on account of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and might flip checks for the coronavirus round quick. It by no means reported many greater than 100 new coronavirus circumstances a day, and over the previous two months, its caseload has fallen. On Tuesday, that was solely 19 of 777 checks performed, the well being ministry stated.
However not everybody with Covid-like signs receives a take a look at in Senegal, and with over 80 % of Covid-19 circumstances in Africa being asymptomatic, in response to the World Well being Group, many circumstances might go below the radar.
On a trip to Touba final Thursday, Senegal’s well being minister informed native journalists that he can be deploying 5,000 well being ministry officers to Touba to observe it and reply if mandatory. He didn’t reply to calls or textual content messages requesting an interview, or reply questions on why the Magal had not been canceled and why many ministers have been attending.
