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COVID-19 and North Africa

The early months of 2020 in North Africa have, of course, been dominated by the spread of the COVID-19 corona virus into the region. The advent of the infection was delayed, by comparison with Europe and even the United States but, once there, its arrival revealed states and governments as unprepared as those of the developed world for the consequences it would bring in its wake. At the time of writing this comment, in mid April, the four countries that had reported on the spread of the disease – Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia – revealed relatively small levels of infection compared with Europe. That, however, was bound to undergo rapid exponential change, as the experiences of China, Europe and the United States had already demonstrated.