A tally by the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that more than a million people across Africa have now been confirmed to have had the new coronavirus.
This new update comes after five months of reporting Africa’s first coronavirus infection in Egypt on February 14. Other African countries including Ghana subsequently reported cases of the virus in late February and March. However, experts say the continent has not seen the peak of the pandemic yet.
“We haven’t seen the peak in Africa yet,” Mary Stephen, technical officer at the WHO’s regional office for Africa, told Al Jazeera.
“Since countries started relaxing lockdown measures, we have seen an increasing number of cases and most of these – more than 80 percent – are coming largely from 10 countries,” she said.
Although about 690,436 people who tested positive have recovered from the virus, more than 22,000 people have so far died across Africa from the coronavirus disease.
Aljazeera reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced alarm at the “acceleration” of the disease in Africa, which until recently had remained relatively unscathed by the pandemic compared with the rest of the world – even as many experts believe the actual number of coronavirus infections is likely much higher.
South Africa, which accounts for more than half of the continent’s registered cases, is the worst-affected African nation and the fifth worst-hit globally. Egypt is in second place with 95,000 confirmed infections, followed by Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, Morocco and Kenya.
Ghana
Ghana has so far confirmed 40,097 COVID-19 cases with 206 deaths. The country’s health service reports that the current active cases on Friday, August 7, stood at 3,253 as 36,638 people are reported to have recovered from the disease.
Ghana’s president in his latest address to the nation on July 26 touted the country death rate and further eased some of the restrictions, allowing public transport to take full capacity.
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Quotes from Aljazeera.