Tying in with the success of the COSAFA initiative to create awareness around the coronavirus pandemic, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced a continent-wide campaign to educate fans, partnering with Senegal-based Speak Up Africa.

CAF will spread their message through the Stay Safe Africa campaign, which seeks to empower communities and individuals to take simple and proven preventive measures to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Africa.

“Through their shared passion to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, CAF and Speak Up Africa are collaborating to bring the Stay Safe Africa campaign to a new audience and to ensure factual information are disseminated to a wider public, mitigating the amount of misinformation being spread about COVID-19,” a statement said.

“To support Stay Safe Africa, CAF will promote the campaign, through a series of social media activations. By lending its influential voices, clubs and legends to the campaign, CAF hopes to help protect one billion Africans from COVID-19.”

Acting CAF General Secretary Abdelmounaim Bah says the organisation is determined to play their part in helping stop the spread of the disease.

“Football brings together so many people from different backgrounds, nationalities and languages,” Bah says. “Even though domestic championships and continental tournaments have been put on hold, we must now come together, at a distance, to fight the spread of this disease and misinformation.

“We are proud to adopt the Stay Safe campaign and help protect the billion people on the African continent.”

Yacine Djibo, Executive Director of Senegal-based Speak Up Africa, says the partnership can be a highly effective measure in combating the virus.

“It is vital that individuals across Africa take responsibility to protect themselves, their families and their communities, by following the recommended prevention measures against COVID-19,” Djibo said.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Confederation of African Football, as we know it will use its powerful platform to spread the all-important prevention messages to football fans across the continent. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, we must come together and work towards our common goal.”

As of Tuesday, there were 93,331 cases of coronavirus recorded across Africa, with 2,925 deaths.