Africa’s confirmed COVID-19 cases pass 1.5m mark

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases in Africa reached 1,506,185 as of Sunday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The continental disease control and prevention agency said in a statement that the death toll due to illnesses related to COVID-19 in Africa has reached 36,614 as of Sunday.

The agency also said that the number of people, who have recovered from the infectious virus across the continent, reached 1,243,259 so far.

Amid the uneven impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on African countries, the Africa CDC said that the most COVID-19 affected African countries in terms of the number of positive cases include South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria respectively.

The Southern Africa region is the most COVID-19 affected region both in terms of the number of confirmed positive cases and the number of deaths, it was noted.

The Northern Africa region is the second most COVID-19-affected African region.

So far, only three African countries have confirmed COVID-19 cases in excess of 100,000.

South Africa currently has the most COVID-19 cases, which hit 679,716.

The country also has the highest number of deaths related to COVID-19 at 16,938, according to the Africa CDC.

Morocco comes next in terms of the number of confirmed cases, with 131,228 confirmed cases.

The Northern African country has 2,293 deaths, it was noted.

Egypt is the third-most affected African country in terms of the number of cases, with 103,575 confirmed cases.

The country has 5,970 deaths, it was noted.

The continent’s total COVID-19 cases represent about 4.4 per cent of the global tally, according to the Africa CDC.

The Africa CDC also said 12 African countries are reporting COVID-19 related fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of three per cent.

These African countries include Chad, Liberia, Niger, Egypt, Mali, Angola, Algeria and Sudan.

The average continental fatality rate is currently around 2.4 per cent.

The African continent also accounts for about 3.6 per cent of the total COVID-19 related deaths reported globally, according to the Africa CDC.

Amid the increasing number of COVID-19 cases across the African continent, the adverse impacts of the pandemic are affecting the continent across various sectors in addition to the healthcare and socio-economic sectors.