North Africa is the hardest hit region
ALTHOUGH the spread of Covid-19 has been relatively slow across Africa, the number of cases on the continent has now surpassed the 19 000 mark, the latest data shows.
North Africa is the hardest hit region with over 7 500 cases, online news publication Morocco World News reported.
The latest figures on real-time data website Worldometer on Friday showed that Egypt leads the continent with the highest number of confirmed cases at 2 673.
Some 196 deaths have been reported in the North African country, while 596 people have recovered from the virus.
Egyptian health authorities have managed to conduct 25 000 tests.
South Africa has conducted the most number of tests on the continent at 90 060. It is close behind Egypt in the number of infections, with 2 605 confirmed cases.
The South African government implemented a nationwide lockdown from March 27 which was meant to last 21 days, but has been extended by a further two weeks to the end of April.
Morocco and Algeria have also reported cases above the 2 000 mark (2 283 and 2 268 respectively), with Algeria reporting the most number of deaths on the African continent at 348.
To date 4 655 people have recovered from Covid-19 in Africa, according to Worldometer’s Covid-19 tracking portal.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says it is working with governments across Africa to scale up their capacities in critical response areas, such as co-ordination, surveillance, testing, isolation, case management, contact tracing, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement, and laboratory capacity.
Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Morocco,Tunisia and Nigeria have expanded national testing to multiple labs, allowing for decentralised testing.
– African News Agency (ANA)
