Medics warn of growing virus outbreak in SSudan

South Sudan was never going to be rey for COVID-19. Five years of civil war and corruption stripped away much of its health system.

Now some workers at country's only lab testing for virus have been infected, along with more than 50 healthworkers.

Some people have died waiting for rapid-response teams to arrive.

It began with a dry cough, weakness and back pain.

For Reagan Taban Augustino, part of South Sudan's small corps of healthworkers trained in treating COVID-19 patients, re was little doubt what he h.

Days later, hardly able to brea, 33-year-old doctor discovered just how poorly equipped his country is for coronavirus pandemic.

None of public facilities he tried in capital, Juba, h oxygen supplies available until he reached South Sudan's only permanent infectious disease unit, which has fewer than 100 beds for a country of 12 million people.

It took more than an hour to mit him.

"I was almost dying at gate," he told Associated Press from unit last week.

pandemic is now accelerating in Africa, World Health Organization has said.

While continent h more time than Europe and United States to prepare before its first case was confirmed on February 14, experts feared many of its health systems would eventually become overwhelmed.

South Sudan, a nation with more military generals than doctors, never h a fighting chance.

Five years of civil war and corruption stripped away much of its health system, and today non-governmental organisations provide majority of care.

Nearly half of population was hungry before pandemic.

Dely insecurity continues, and a locust outbreak arrived just weeks before virus.

When world leers talk about pandemic not being over until it's over everywhere, y are talking about places like South Sudan.

United Nations has said country's outbreak is growing rapidly, with nearly 1,900 cases, including more than 50 health workers infected, more than 30 deaths and no way to know true number of infections.

At South Sudan's only laboratory that tests for virus, supervisor Simon Deng Nyichar said team of 16 works up to 16-hour days slogging through a backlog of more than 5,000 tests.

Around 9,000 samples have been tested since early April, when country became one of last in Africa to confirm a coronavirus case.

With materials in short supply, testing is largely limited to people with symptoms of COVID-19.

It can take weeks to receive results.

Three lab workers have been infected and recovered, Nyichar told AP.

"Even half of us get infection, we will continue doing our work, because we are saving nation."

With long hours, y work in pairs to stay sharp.

While y're aware of dangers, South Sudan's population at large still takes convincing.

government's loosening of lockdown measures last month was "perceived as an indication that disease is not in South Sudan," Health Ministry said.

Bars, restaurants and shops are open after people said y feared hunger more than disease.

Some people have died waiting for rapid-response teams to arrive, ministry said.

And this month it stopped issuing "COVID-19 negativity certificates," citing peddling of fake ones — especially around Juba International Airport.

Meanwhile virus has spre into more rural areas, including one of United Nations-run camps upcountry where more than 150,000 civilians still shelter after South Sudan's civil war ended in 2018.

re's been an increase in deaths related to respiratory tract infections at that camp in Bentiu, WHO official Wamala Joseph told reporters last week, though it's not clear wher y were from virus.

Testing is difficult as all samples must be flown to capital.

Three of six camps have no virus screening at gate, according to a U.N. migration agency document dated this month.

One camp has no facility to isolate sick, and anor will only have one when a generator is installed.

Meanwhile "our hospitals are full," Wolde-Gabriel Saugeron, who les International Committee of Red Cross' team in Bor, wrote last week.

"COVID-19 means that we need to create more space between our hospital beds, which has reduced number of people we can accommodate in our wards by 30%."

pandemic is also worsening what was alrey a major problem in South Sudan: hunger.

Most border crossings are closed, and food prices in markets have shot up.

Now rain season has started, making transport and storage more difficult.

More than 1.5 million people in South Sudan are newly vulnerable, including urban poor who h not been receiving aid before, U.N. humanitarian agency said last week.