30-year-old Zimbabwe broadcaster’s death shatters coronavirus myth

A 30-year-old Zimbabwean journalist who died from the deadly coronavirus is not only courting sympathy, but has broken a long-held myth that black young people are the least susceptible to coronavirus death.

Makamba was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Saturday, March 21, the BBC reported. He was admitted to an isolation center in the capital, Harare.

The prominent broadcaster is reported to have contracted the virus from New York and was in isolation at Wilkins hospital, Harare’s only isolation facility.

But on Monday, he became a death statistic—one of the thousands across the world to have succumbed to contagious coronavirus.

The deceased broadcaster had a high profile and at the peak of his career and comes from a wealthy background.

His death brought to the fore discussions about young people being indifferent towards a disease that knows no boundaries as it is taking the lives of both the young and the aged, although the older generation with compromised immune systems are fast exiting.

Makamba was not the first person to have contracted the virus in Zimbabwe, but the first to have died from the disease in that country. The first man to have been infected, according to the BBC, is alive and recovering well enough in self-isolation.

Commenting on Makamba’s demise, a Ghanaian nurse and health blogger in Ghana, Kobby Blay, said as the older folks across the world die from the disease because of underlying health conditions, the same could be said for the African youth, who were vulnerable to respiratory diseases.

“Take, for instance, HIV; Out of the 34 million HIV-positive people worldwide, 69% live in sub-Saharan Africa. There are roughly 23.8 million infected persons in all of Africa. 91% of the world’s HIV-positive children live in Africa.

“Also, Africa faces a double burden of infectious and chronic diseases. While infectious diseases still account for at least 69% of deaths on the continent, age specific mortality rates from chronic diseases as a whole are actually higher in sub Saharan Africa, than in virtually all other regions of the world, in both men and women.

He added in his Facebook comment that “aside these significant disadvantages, our health systems, inadequate ICUs, Water and sanitation, malnourished children are still issues that puts us in a dire situation”.