Mauritania says it is now coronavirus-free

Mauritania says it is now coronavirus-free after officials of that country reportedly confirmed on Monday that all six active cases have recovered. A seventh person had earlier died.

This makes Mauritania the only country on the African continent to make that claim. The scarcely populated nation was also one of the few countries that reported single-digit COVID-19 cases.

Burundi, Sao Tome and Principe and South Sudan are among the countries with single digit cases.

Mauritania reported its first case on March 13. Since then, authorities say they are carrying out extensive testing amid a curfew intended to contain a spread.

Mauritania, like other African countries, face a dire challenge fighting the coronavirus because of poverty and political instability.

Last year, Mauritanians were left in bewilderment after the European Union donated 250 camels to the Sahelian country in a partnership quest to fight against Islamic fundamentalists in North and West Africa.

Africa on a whole, still lags behind the rest of the world in confirmed cases of the coronavirus. The continent’s 24,000 or so cases make it statistically the safest place.

The case count is accompanied by almost 1,200 deaths and over 6,000 recoveries.

But the continent’s battle has also been affected by disinformation and miseducation on the pandemic, sometimes from the highest placed and influential people.

Social media has been awash with theories that connect the coronavirus pandemic and 5G technology. In Africa, the theories have taken the form of Christian eschatology. The end times are here, so says some men of megachurches, and the devil is about to take over.

Chris Oyakhilome, the Nigerian leader of the Christ Embassy Church or LoveWorld Inc., has emerged as the continent’s most powerful evangelist of the theory of some sinister doing behind the pandemic.