Cape Town - Covid-19 cases in Africa continue to decline slightly with the trend for a plateau persisting for yet another week.
So announced the World Health Organisation Africa, saying 41 540 new cases were reported in the week ending on July 10 2022 – a 9.4% decrease from the week before.
This is relatively low as weekly cases have fluctuated from 19 500 to more than 300 000, it said.
“Deaths rates are also relatively low— the average over the past month is a bit more than 130 each week.
“Weekly deaths have fluctuated from less than ten in the first few weeks of the pandemic to nearly 3 900.
“Even as cases fall, it is important that countries remain vigilant and capitalize on the decline to beef up their preparedness for any potential surge. Equatorial Guinea is currently in resurgence following a three-week surge in new cases. Fourteen other countries are on alert after recording an uptick in Covid-19 incidence in recent weeks,” WHO Africa said.
However, the increase in cases observed was marginal compared with previous waves and the number of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths have continued to remain low as the data on hospitalization from countries improves.
As July 11 2022, there has been 12.1 million Covid-19 cases recorded in Africa, with over 255 000 deaths, with five countries accounting for 87% of all new cases and 91% of deaths reported over the last week.
At the weekend South Africa had 3 999 751 cumulative Covid-19 cases, with 406 new cases reported.
By Friday there had been 101 918 deaths.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases recently said substantially lower numbers of hospitalisations and deaths were observed in compared to any previous wave including the Omicron BA.1 wave.
High levels of population immunity were likely a major contributor to the reduction in the burden of severe illness and death in South Africa.
The institute noted a recent study by the South African National Blood Service that estimating that 98% of South Africans had detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.
These antibodies were a result of infection, vaccination or a combination of the two.
Cape Times