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Tue, Mar 24, 2020

African leaders respond to coronavirus… on Twitter

AfricaSource by Luke Tyburski

Africa Coronavirus Media Resilience & Society

Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara shows off proper sanitation practices to his Twitter following. (Twitter/@AOuattara_PRCI)

American President Donald Trump is not the only world leader talking about COVID-19 on Twitter. His African counterparts have also embraced the platform, mostly to update citizens on government actions, provide advice on precautionary health measures, and link to official statements. They have also flocked to the medium to begin sensitizing their populations to best practices for social distancing and hygiene. This has led to some creative content, including Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s highly viewed participation in the #SafeHands challenge.

Find below a curation of tweets on the COVID-19 pandemic from Sub-Saharan African leaders and associated official accounts. This collection is meant to serve as a window to the continent’s evolving response. Content is organized by sub-region and then alphabetically by country.

Jump to region

Southern Africa

East Africa

Central Africa

West Africa

Southern Africa:

Botswana

https://twitter.com/TsholetsaDomi/status/1238324860536922112

Comoros

https://twitter.com/Azali_officiel/status/1239649350747332613

Eswatini

Lesotho

No relevant tweets from official accounts were found.

Madagascar

https://twitter.com/SE_Rajoelina/status/1241101811647500288

Malawi

Mauritius

https://twitter.com/PKJugnauth/status/1240740484714319872

Mozambique

No relevant tweets from official accounts were found.

Namibia

Seychelles

South Africa

Zambia

Zimbabwe

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East Africa:

Djibouti

Eritrea

Ethiopia

https://twitter.com/AbiyAhmedAli/status/1240291553056260099

Kenya

Rwanda

Somalia

South Sudan

Sudan

Tanzania

Uganda

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Central Africa

Angola

Burundi

https://twitter.com/willynyamitwe/status/1239240373945409540

Cameroon

https://twitter.com/PR_Paul_BIYA/status/1239988020763398147

Central African Republic

No relevant tweets from official accounts were found.

Chad

Congo-Brazzaville

https://twitter.com/MinistereComCG/status/1239695479476293632

Democratic Republic of Congo

https://twitter.com/Presidence_RDC/status/1240736987960741889

Equatorial Guinea

No relevant tweets from official accounts were found.

Gabon

São Tomé and Príncipe

No relevant tweets from official accounts were found.

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West Africa

Benin

Burkina Faso

Cabo Verde

Côte d’Ivoire

Gambia

Ghana

Guinea

Guinea-Bissau

Liberia

No relevant tweets from official accounts were found.

Mali

Mauritania

Niger

Nigeria

Senegal

Sierra Leone

Togo

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Luke Tyburski is a project assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Questions? Tweet them to our experts @ACAfricaCenter.

For more content, go to our Coronavirus: Africa page.

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