CASES OF CORONA VIRUS IN AFRICA HAVE GONE BEYOND 20,000 WITH OVER 1,000 DEATH RECORDED

According to the tallies from the John Hopkins which revealed the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus passed the 20,000 mark barely 24-hours after the deaths topped 1,000.

The figures stood at 100,075 with about 4,600 recoveries and 1,026 deaths leaving a little over 13,350 active cases.

Egypt remained the continent’s most impacted whiles the North African region generally contributed for some of the highest numbers. Egypt with 2,844 cases, Morocco with over 2,600 cases and Algeria with 2,418 confirmed cases.

South of the Sahara, South Africa’s 2,700 cases was the highest with Cameroon in a distant second with 1,017, Ivory Coast’s 732, Djibouti’s 732 and Ghana’s 641 completed the top five slots.

Meanwhile the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, has warned that cases could spike across the continent as more testing is rolled out in the coming weeks.

Reports have now revealed that Africa could see 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus this year even under the best-case scenario, under the worst-case scenario with no interventions against the virus, Africa could see 3.3 million deaths and 1.2 billion infections.

Experts have warned that any of the scenarios would overwhelm Africa’s largely fragile and underfunded health systems. Under the best-case scenario, $44 billion would be needed for testing, personal protective equipment and treatment. The worst-case scenario would cost $446 billion.