Coronavirus is beginning to gain a foothold in Africa, a continent which was once seen as one of the disease’s safest grounds.
More than three months after Egypt became the first country in Africa to confirm a case of coronavirus, the outbreak has reached across every nation on the continentof 1.2 billion people.
The confirmed death toll of coronavirus on the continent exceeded 3,500 on Thursday morning, with fatalities including former Congo President Jacques Joachim Yhombi-Opango; former Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein; and Chief of Staff of President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, and scores of health workers.
According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 120,000 infections were registered, with nearly 50,000 recoveries.
While the tally is still relatively small compared to global estimates, it has doused the debate on the continent getting some kind of protection against COVID-19 due to its sunny climate.
Egypt has the largest number of deaths-707 with over 15,000 infections, according to worldometer.info. Next to Egypt, Algeria has 592 deaths of more than 8, 000 infections. In Morocco about 198 deaths and 7, 406 infections were reported.
With over 20,000 cases including about 397 deaths, South Africa still leads the continent, largely due to the countries’ good health system.
Nigeria had 7,261 cases, with 221 deaths as of Thursday morning.
According to officials from the World Health Organization, the figures are likely to greatly underestimate the true number of cases in Africa, raising fears that the disease could overwhelm under-resourced health systems on the continent.
Despite daily infection alerts, several African countries are struggling to reopen their economies to cushion the a lockdown’s adverse impact.