COVID19: Why developing countries are having it good

The advent of COVID 19 in the year 2020 have brought the world to its knee with the level of mortality recorded since the surge. The entire human population is daily striving to survive while waiting for Government and big global organizations saddled with the global health i.e. WHO to announce the discovery of the vaccine which may come in form of jab or pills to protect the global populace.

Reprieve however, came the way with the announcement of vaccines from the different big pharmacies around the globe after the approval of WHO for human use against the COVID 19 menace. With the long-awaited discovery of vaccines from these different companies, one would have expected the much dreaded COVID 19 disappeared without leaving any further footprint.

Unfortunately, till today, different news of the mutant strain ranging from SAR-COV 2 to delta variant to omicron is surfacing. One then begins to wonder, how Africa that was once predicted to record a massive dip in their population resulting from COVID 19 due to the endemic poverty on one hand, and the lack of sophisticated healthcare facilities on the other would survive the unpleasant situation.

With all sense of responsibility, sanity and modesty, it is the big continents like America, Europe, Asia that are recording huge fatalities from COVID 19 against the earlier prediction by renowned philanthropist Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In Bill and Melinda Gate words

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and wife of US billionaire Bill Gates, has said the coronavirus pandemic will make Africa have dead bodies lying on the streets.

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Till today, the world is puzzled on how Africa as a continent is still managing to record the lowest figure in mortality rate when compared. Of course, this cannot be attributed to sheer mother-luck or mere co-incidence, because there must be scientific explanation for every of such scenarios especially life-threatening cases like COVID19.

In the bid of trying to find a suitable and acceptable explanation for the low rate in mortality figure from COVID 19 in Africa, dietary intake of Africans may be one of the many reasons why it is still standing against all the scary postulations. Because of the perceived disadvantage in science and technology as well as inadequate cutting edge research that could help to advance food security in most developing and the under-developed nations (mostly African nations), Africans consume largely unfertilized, unhybridized and mostly non Genetically Modified Organic foods and fruits.

Among the fruits consumed accidentally or knowingly by Africans especially my motherland (Nigeria) and evidenced in different scientific reports to possess anti-viral activities, and source of anti-oxidants to help in reducing the impact of microbial infection include wild date palm (Phoenix reclinata), Sour sop (Annona muricata), Bitter cola (Garcinia kola), Bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina), Water melon (Citrullus lanatus), Wild mango (Cordyla africana), Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranean), Avocado (Persea americana), Scent leaf (Ocimum gratissimum), Neem (Azadirachta indica), Guava (Psidium guajava), Ginger (Zingiber officinale), garlic (Allium sativum), Black pepper (Piper nigrum), Monamona (Citrus sinensis), Tumeric (Curcuma longa), Alligator pepper (Aframomum melegueta), and the list is endless.

All the aforementioned plants have been reported to have huge immunomodulatory activities in human. In addition, the untidiness of the African environment may have provided the much-needed immunity in many Africans which possibly helped in mitigating the effect of COVID 19. This is so because, while growing up especially in the rural or semi-urban areas where there is haphazard arrangements of living in most developing and under-developed nations, we have been exposed to many microbes that lives and thrive within our unhealthy environment which has left some in-print immune in the African genetic systems, hence, the possible high survival rate.

^{The author of this piece has documented and published an article in an international peer- review journal where plants (fruits, roots, rhizomes and vegetables) with anti-viral/antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities were scavenged from different literature search and documented in one published article. The title of the published article for further reading and scrutiny is ‘’ Potential medicinal, nutritive and antiviral food plants: Africa’s plausible answer to the low COVID-19 mortality’’ and the link is attached herein ‘’J Herbmed Pharmacol. 2022;11(1):20-34. doi: 10.34172/jhp.2022.03’’.}