Coronavirus surges in Djibouti as population ignores measures

DJIBOUTI: Djibouti has seen a rapid spike in coronavirus cases, with the Horn of Africa nation now recording the highest prevalence on the continent as the population largely ignores measures imposed by authorities.

The tiny but strategically important country that hosts major US and French military bases has recorded 999 positive cases — small on a global scale, but the highest in East Africa. Two people have died. This is largely due to testing. Djibouti, with a population of around one million, has conducted more than 11,000 tests — a similar number to neighbouring Ethiopia, which has more than 100 million people. But more alarming than the figure itself is the runaway rate of multiplication: in just two weeks, Djibouti has recorded a seven-fold increase in cases. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday said that with 98.6 cases per 100,000 people, Djibouti has the highest prevalence on the continent. Authorities have conceded the virus has not been successfully contained since a nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 23, when Djibouti had just two recorded cases of COVID-19. “The epidemic is getting worse,” the health ministry said last week. The inability to control the outbreak has irritated Djibouti´s powerful President Ismail Omar Guelleh, who has ruled since succeeding his uncle in 1999, and is not bound by term limits. “The confinement has not been respected by everyone, and unfortunately many of our compatriots still take this disease lightly,” Guelleh said in a televised address to the nation this week. “You continue to circulate, not observing minimum distances, not isolating yourselves, and spreading the disease.

As the pandemic swept the globe, Djibouti — which the democracy advocacy group Freedom House ranked “not free” on its 2020 index measuring political rights and civil liberties — ordered its citizens to remain home. Only those working in essential industries were allowed outside, and public transport was banned to curtail movement. The small nation wedged between Somalia and Eritrea, and landlocked Ethiopia´s gateway to the coastline, also closed its borders as well as schools, places of worship and all but the most necessary shops. But crowds continue to throng the capital city and few wear masks or are stopped by police or soldiers on patrol, an AFP journalist said. No health measures were witnessed at busy markets selling fruit, vegetables and khat, a chewed narcotic leaf popular in the region. “If behaviour doesn´t change I will take even tougher measures,” said Guelleh, who has crushed past rallies against his rule and curbed Djibouti´s free press, civil society and political opposition. “This could go as far as a curfew, which would be the only way to stop the spread of this virus.