Interview

Africa: the impossible confinement

Lockdown, a solution to the spread of the epidemic?

In Africa, the COVID-19 epidemic is evolving differently compared to Europe or America, the virus causes less havoc among the continent’s predominantly young population for now.
Frédéric Le Marcis is an anthropologist. He focuses on epidemic responses in prison environment in different African countries. He currently lives and works in Guinea, where he heads a research programme on the COVID-19 epidemic. Prison Insider asked him three questions.

Essentially, this generally imposed confinement makes everyone partake in this issue.

In Africa, presidential pardons are one of the common practices for managing overcrowding in prisons.

Overcrowding, the weakness of preventive measures and the extent of comorbidities in prisons create fertile ground for the development of the epidemic.