CAPE TOWN - As the coronavirus pandemic ravages health facilities across the globe, killing just over 334 000 people worldwide, and with many health analysts saying that the worst is yet to come in Africa, the continent has recorded just over 40,000 recoveries as of Friday.
According to real-time tracking website Worldometer, the continent currently has over 101 000 coronavirus cases, with 3,115 coronavirus-related deaths since the beginning of the outbreak.
However, the true number of recorded active infections on the continent is 58,146 cases – if one removes the recovered cases and the deaths from the total infections tally.
South Africa is the epicentre of coronavirus infections on the African continent.
The country’s health ministry reported over 20 000 cases and just under 400 deaths in its Friday update. The nation recorded its first coronavirus case on March 5. The country has, however, recorded the highest number of recoveries on the continent, which now stands at 8,950.
South Africa, which is currently at alert level 4 of a national lockdown, is looking to relax lockdown regulations and proceed to level 3 in a bid to open up the economy. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this week that South Africa needed to prove that infections were declining before easing lockdown regulations, and the health minister said the country was far from that goal.
Egypt has just surpassed the 15,000 mark in infections and leads the African continent with the highest number of deaths.
The North African country has recorded 696 deaths since the beginning of the outbreak. According to the latest data, the nation has 10,090 active cases, while 4,217 Egyptians have recovered from the deadly virus.
British daily newspaper The Guardian reported that Egyptian doctors are increasingly at odds with Egyptian health authorities about the coronavirus outbreak. Many health workers are calling for more personal protective equipment (PPE), while others are calling for a full lockdown in response to the rapid growth in infections.
According to reports, Algeria has recently come under fire from various medical practitioners for its low testing capacity as compared with its neighbours. The country has 7,728 infections and has recorded 575 deaths, the second highest on the continent. A total of 3,091 people have recovered from the coronavirus in Algeria. Data is unavailable as to how many people have been been tested for the coronavirus in Algeria.
The East African country of Eritrea recorded 39 total cases, with all 39 citizens recovering from the virus.