COVID-19: African countries urged to stand resilient

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - Now that Africa was facing a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continent should remain ever resilient, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday.

Dr. John Nkengasong's remarks came during the weekly virtual news briefing.

“The continent is slowly moving towards a third wave,” he said. “I strongly appeal [to African nations] ‘do not relent’.”

He warned: “We have to remain resilient and deny the opportunity for the virus to spread.”

In terms of vaccine supply and distribution, Nkengasong said 400 million doses of vaccines would be received from Johnson & Johnson, making it the largest supplier to Africa.

“That would take us to almost half of the population that we are targeting,” he said, adding that there were ongoing talks to import the BioNTech/Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines.

The continent has so far recorded 4,222,260 cases, 112,820 deaths, and 3,771,866 recoveries, with lab tests conducted on specimens taken from 40,059,233 people, according to the Africa CDC on Thursday.

Southern Africa recorded 1.9 million cases, North Africa 1.2 million, East Africa 500,400, West Africa 433,700, and Central Africa registered 133,000 infections.

At least 60,100 people died of the virus in Southern Africa, 35,800 in North Africa, 9,000 in East Africa, 5,700 in West Africa, and 2,200 in Central Africa.