The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said Africa is witnessing an increase in Covid-19 cases largely driven by a doubling in cases reported in South Africa, reported News 24.
“This week new Covid-19 cases and deaths on the continent increased for the first time after a decline of more than two months for cases and one month for deaths,” Benido Impouma, director for communicable and non-communicable diseases at the WHO’s Africa office told an online news conference on Thursday.
The WHO official added that the rise is largely associated with the increasing number of cases reported from South Africa which is entering its winter season when respiratory illnesses become more prevalent.
Africa has been experiencing a reduction in COVID cases in recent months. Earlier this month, the WHO also pointed to the longest-running decline in weekly infections on the continent since the start of the pandemic.
But the case numbers began to pick up in South Africa last week, where the health authorities have already begun monitoring for signs of a fifth infection wave.
Impouma said there was no evidence as yet to suggest the increase in cases was connected to any new sub-lineages or a new coronavirus variant.
During the same conference, Helen Rees, executive director of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Reproductive Health and HIV Institute in Johannesburg, said an increasing share of South Africa’s COVID cases were the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of the Omicron variant.
But she said the country had so far not seen a huge increase in mortality or intensive care admissions.
In related news, the WHO and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday warned of an increased risk of measles spread, with global cases up nearly 80% in 2022 as compared with 2021.
The organizations said the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions, inequalities in access to vaccines, and the diversion of resources from routine immunization have left people without protection against measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
