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On today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Jean B. Nachega. Dr. Nachega is associated with many distinguished universities around the world, including the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Centre for Infectious Diseases, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. Dr Nachega speaks about the topics in his recently published article titled Limiting the spread of COVID-19 in Africa: one size mitigation strategies do not fit all countries. 

He has over 25 year-experience in patient care, teaching, designing and implementing HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis studies or programs funded by NIH/NIAID, PEPFAR, EDCTP, and Wellcome Trust. He is a lead HIV Investigator within AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) and an ad hoc consultant at WHO, CDC, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as a member of Academy of Sciences of South Africa (ASSAF) and African Academy of Sciences (AAS).

Thanks for joining us for this wonderful opportunity to learn from one of the leading researchers on the COVID pandemic. Enjoy!

Talking points:

• A brief introduction of Dr. Nachega (00:54)
• The impact of COVID-19 in patients who are coinfected with HIV (02:00)
• Reasons why Africa might be slower in the prevalence of COVID-19 (02:38)
• The impact of age distribution on African cases of COVID-19 (04:10)
• The effect of temperature and humidity in the spread of COVID-19 (05:30)
• Barriers to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 are specific to Africa (06:35)
• Dr. Nachega’s recommendations for social distancing and handwashing for Africa (07:47)
• Dr. Nachega’s take-home message for clinicians (08:50)

Resources:

“Limiting the spread of COVID-19 in Africa: one size mitigation strategies do not fit all countries."
Lancet Global Health. 2020 July.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7240268/