As the World Health Organization (WHO) announces phase six of the pandemic A/H1N1 swine flu 11 June, a curious fact jumps out from the map that the organization publishes each day with its statistics. Not one sub-Saharan African country has reported a single case of the new flu. The only African country with officially reported cases is Egypt, with 10 (11 June).

On the face of it, the populations in many of Africa’s countries would be prime candidates for contracting flu. They are poor, often malnourished, suffering from war and disease in many places, and crowded into teeming cities with poor provision of basic services. How have they avoided A/H1N1?

WHO spokesperson Larath Gollogly in Geneva told GenevaLunch that if the virus has arrived in Africa, and it probably has, it is not a priority for already overwhelmed health authorities: reporting may lag.

Tracking swine flu takes time and resources that many countries cannot spare. WHO provides the means for testing in many countries, but even some much richer countries took a long time to begin reporting cases.

African countries have nevertheless been preparing for the flu and reports sent to the WHO by 15 May showed that all countries had “contingency and emergency preparedness and response plans; all have also set up A/H1N1 emergency or crisis management committees or commissions or Task Forces, and all are enhancing surveillance to enable early detection, laboratory confirmation of cases and rapid response,” the organization reported at the time. More than one million doses of Tamiflu had been delivered to the region by mid-May.

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