It has not gone unnoticed on the continent that the preponderance of cases originated from Europe and the United States. Last week, after Kenya announced that the country’s first case of coronavirus was a woman who had traveled from the United States through London to Nairobi, rumors circulated on social media that Africans are immune to the virus.

“I would like to disabuse that notion,” said Mutahi Kagwe, Kenya’s minister of health, at a news conference. “The lady is an African, like you and I.”

Some warn that if and when the virus gets into crowded cities like Kinshasa, Lagos and Addis Ababa, the results will be disastrous.

Many African countries set up public health institutions in the wake of the Ebola outbreak that began in West Africa in 2013, and the African Union established the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which coordinates the fight against outbreaks.

“The Ebola outbreak was a wake up call for the entire continent that our public health systems and health systems as a whole were weak,” said Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa C.D.C.

However, the continent’s public health systems have never been well-funded, and experts warned that this vulnerability, along with crowded conditions and poor sanitation in cities, and the unpredictable movement of populations, could make outbreaks impossible to control.

“I don’t believe, if we have a large influx of people with the virus, we can cope,” said Dr. Tomori.