Africa's COVID-19 death toll nears 88K

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Africa reached 87,937, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an update on Thursday.

The continent registered 3,494,117 cases since February last year, while 2,977,335 patients have recuperated.

Southern Africa is the most affected of the five geographical regions in the continent with 1.7 million cases and 46,800 deaths. But the region also registered the most number of recoveries which now stands at 1.4 million.

North Africa recorded 1.1 million cases, East Africa 356,100, West Africa 312,900, and Central Africa 86,700.

In a weekly press briefing on Thursday, Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong said Africa experienced a case mortality rate higher than the global average.

“The case mortality rate in Africa [during the past one week] was 2.5%, while the global case mortality rate stands at 2.2%,” he said.

Nkengasong also noted that 37,000 fatalities were recorded during the past week across the continent.

- Vaccine promises

On Jan. 19, the Africa CDC, through its non-profit organization, the Africa Medical Supplies Platform, announced the commencement of a COVID-19 vaccines pre-order program for all African Union member states.

Earlier on Jan. 14, President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, also the African Union chairperson for 2020, announced that the union had secured a provisional 270 million COVID-19 vaccine doses through the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team.

According to the statement by the African CDC, the African Import-Export Bank would facilitate payments by providing advance procurement commitment guarantees of up to $2 billion to the manufacturers on behalf of member states.

There are, however, complaints reverberating across the continent that each of the vaccine beneficiaries may be required to pay up to $10 in a continent where too many people are said to be living on less than $1 a day.