A worker sprays disinfectant inside a bus in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, on Aug. 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent has reached 1,373,986, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday.
ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent has reached 1,373,986, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday.
The continental disease control and prevention agency said in a statement that the death toll related to the pandemic now stood at 33,251 as of Thursday.
The Africa CDC also disclosed the number of people with COVID-19 who recovered across the continent has reached 1,127,034.
The most affected African countries in terms of the number of positive cases include South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia and Nigeria.
The continent's total COVID-19 cases represent about 5 percent of the global tally, according to the Africa CDC.
Amid the increasing number of COVID-19 cases across the African continent, the adverse impacts of the pandemic are affecting the continent across various sectors in addition to the healthcare and socioeconomic sectors.
On Wednesday, the AU Commission stressed that emergency measures that followed the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in the curtailment of human rights, rule of law, justice and constitutionalism across Africa.
Latest figures from the Africa CDC show that ten African countries account for 81 percent of the new COVID-19 cases reported during the past week in Africa that are South Africa at 22 percent, Morocco at 21 percent, Ethiopia at 14 percent, Libya at 10 percent, Algeria 4 percent, and Kenya, Nigeria, Namibia, Tunisia and Egypt each at 2 percent.
In terms of reporting the highest cumulative incidence of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in Africa, South Africa placed first at 1,079, followed by Cape Verde at 647 and Djibouti at 539. ■
