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Highlights African countries are considering/deploying digital contact-tracing (DCT) to mitigate Covid-19 contagion. We adopt a socio-technical perspective to highlight complexities entailed in using DCT in Africa. We propose a blended epidemiological approach to (digital) contact-tracing. One that allows policymakers to adapt and translate DCT to the unique institutional and technological capacities in Africa. One that enables policymakers to leverage local practices learned from previous pandemics.

Following the initial outbreak of Covid-19, the United Nations and other established bodies and public figures predicated 'tens' of millions of deaths across Africa due to their weak healthcare systems and critical infrastructure. So far, it appears that Africa is leveraging on local innovations and the resilience gained from dealing with previous outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Ebola to manage the impact of Covid-19 to defile early predictions and the surprise of the rest of the world. Yet, very little is being said about this. This research note thus set out to talk about this by outlining the local initiates, which is helping African countries build resilience and mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and the poor healthcare systems in the continent.

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