After the epicenter of SARS-SoV-2 (Corona-Virus) moved to Europe, also the cases in African countries are rising and most of the countries have positive confirmed cases. Numbers from the 25th of March showed that around 1000 were tested positively in at least 40 countries.
The spread of the virus to Africa leads to reports about the bad health care provision also in the bourgeois and imperialist media. Especially cynical are the „positive factors“ in Africa, they write in the course of the Corona-virus outbreak. The reports say the „advantage“ of the African population would be that only 3% of Africans are older than 65 years. That „advantage“ is firstly not proved to lead to less dying people, because it is not primarily the age, but the bad state of health, which leads more likely to death from the virus. Secondly the young population is primarily because of the bad situation in the African countries, that they can not develop further, because of imperialist exploitation and oppression. Due to the general situation the people die earlier, worse health care systems, bad water access, poor nutrition…
The second cynical „advantage“ is that African countries would have „a lot of experiences“ with epidemics and diseases. That this is not an „advantage“ shows, that the most important thing to prevent epidemics and diseases, is a good public health care system. Due to many diseases, the health care system is nearly inexistent and Millions of people die because of illnesses which could be already easily be cured with enough medicine. The biggest problem is, that African countries are only used by the imperialists to have cheap labour and cheap natural resources, even medical treatment is controlled by imperialism and works to a huge extent through the „help“ of imperialist NGOs, which undermines self-determination and development of national health care system.
Also measures to „protect“ which are implemented in the imperialist countries, are a joke when faced with the reality in most of the African countries. Millions of people live in slums, only in South Africa officially 14 Millions of people live in slums. In the Kenian city Kibera, around 700.000 live in slums. A huge part of the African people have no access to water supply, they can not regularly wash their hands. As well as „safety“ in work is ridiculous if you look at the workers rights. It is obvious that not the economical „upswing“ which is propagated will bring better conditions to the people, it is exactly the imperialist countries and their organizations of WHO, IMF etc. which deepened exploitation, but left the people with nearly no health care system. And not only that: the imperialists are stealing the medical stuff from the African countries. In Ghana there is only one doctor for 10.000 people, there are as many medical doctors from Ghana in Great Britain as in Ghana itself. The same is in France: More doctors from Benin work there than in the whole country of Benin. This examples could be listed far longer. The people see that the imperialists are living not only on the expense of their own population, but to a great extent on the expense of the oppressed countries. Imperialism leads to that bad health care service, not to speak about the corruption which grows from the exploitation of the countries and peoples. Also the medical supply is controlled by the imperialist countries, 95% of all medical products are imported to Africa, which means that imperialist countries use especially epidemics for their own interests, politically as well as economically.
The last point to show what such a pandemic means for the peoples in Africa is the number of intensive care beds. South Africa, which is praised as the „strongest economy“ in Africa, has about 1000 intensive care beds for 57 Million people. In comparison, Germany has 28.000 intensive care beds. Even worse is the situation in Kenia: for 50 Millions there are only 130 intensive care beds. In Italy, where the health care system collapses in front of the virus (because of the previous massive cuts in health care system), there are 41 doctors for 10.000 people, in Africa in average there are two doctors for 10.000 people.
Epidemics like Corona-virus, but also other diseases are not hitting everybody „the same“. Situations like that shows the previous conditions even better, shows the real interests of the imperialist countries (especially US and European Union), which speak about „aid“, but what stays is poverty, exploitation and oppression. The crisis of the imperialist world system, which deepens with this actual situation, will bring even more people to struggle against oppression and exploitation, to struggle for the interests and rights of the peoples and against imperialism.
