By Morgan Winsor and Erin Schumaker, ABC News
May 12, 2021 | 7:00 AM
narvikk/iStock
(NEW YORK) — As India, the second-most populous country in the world, grapples with a devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections that has pushed its health system to the brink of collapse, officials in Africa, the world’s second-largest continent, are on high alert.
“What’s happening in India must not happen here,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said at a virtual press briefing last Thursday. “If we prepare now, we will not pay the price later.”
The more than 414,000 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 recorded in India last Thursday was the highest single-day count by any nation during the pandemic. But the alarming spike is a relatively new phenomenon there. Until late February, India was considered a success story, with experts surmising that declining infections might be due to the South Asian country’s warm climate, young inhabitants and high population density. Now, India is the epicenter of the pandemic.