The Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday that Africa is registering a surge in new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the continent has surpassed the 50,000 mark, reported CGTN.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across Africa increased from 49,352 from Wednesday afternoon to 51,698 as of Thursday morning. The continent has reported 2,012 deaths so far, while 17,590 have recovered from the illness.
According to Africa CDC, COVID-19 cases are accelerating at an alarming rate from Nigeria in the west to South Africa and Kenya in the east as most countries began to engage in mass testing.
South Africa has reported the most number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa, with 7,808 people infected. Egypt comes next in the list with 7,588 cases, while Morocco has reported 5,408 cases and Algeria has 4,997, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Lesotho, which is completely surrounded by South Africa, is the only African country that has not reported a single case of COVID-19. The virus has killed 476 people in Algeria, 469 in Egypt, and 183 in Morocco.
While addressing reporters on Thursday, John Nkengasong, Africa CDC Director, said West Africa has become the worst affected region over the last one week, registering around 36 percent of COVID-19 cases across the African continent.
“West Africa recorded 5,243 new COVID-19 cases over the last one week followed by North Africa with 4,492 COVID-19 new cases, Southern Africa with 2,557 new COVID-19 cases, Central Africa with 1,280 new COVID-19 cases and East Africa with 1,185 new COVID-19 cases respectively,” he said.
The Africa CDC has estimated the fatality rates of COVID-19 cases to be around 3.9 percent of all cases in the continent. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has had an adverse impact on economies of almost all the countries in the African continent.
