COVID-19: Cases rise to 23,000 in Africa – WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo, says the number of cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Africa has increased to more than 23,000.

The UN health agency gave the update on its official twitter account, @WHOAFRO, on Tuesday.

“More than 23,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported on the continent, with more than 5,900 recoveries and 1,100 deaths,” he said.

The WHO African Region COVID-19 panel showed that in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa suffered the most severe outbreak, while Cameroon and Ghana had more than 2,000 confirmed cases.

The panel’s breakdown showed that South Africa, Algeria and Cameroon remained at the top of the list of countries with the highest recorded cases.

South Africa has 3,300 cases and 58 deaths, followed by Algeria, with 2,718 cases and 384 deaths, while Cameroon has 1,163 confirmed cases with 42 deaths.

According to WHO, South Sudan, São Tomé and Príncipe, Burundi and Mauritania still remain the countries with the fewest confirmed cases in the region.

He showed that South Sudan and São Tomé and Príncipe had the lowest number of confirmed cases, each with four cases with zero death.

In Burundi, the update proved to be the second country with the lowest number of confirmed cases, with six reported cases and one death.

Mauritania, the third country with the fewest cases, recorded seven confirmed cases with one death.

The breakdown also shows that Nigeria is number 9 among the countries with the highest number of cases, with 541 confirmed cases and 19 deaths.

However, by updates from the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), 38 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Nigeria to 665.