Thu 28 April 2022:
According to the World Health Organization, Africa is seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases, which is mostly driven to a doubling in cases recorded in South Africa.
“This week new COVID-19 cases and deaths on the continent increased for the first time after a decline of more than two months for cases and one month for deaths,” Benido Impouma, director for communicable and non-communicable diseases at the WHO’s Africa office told an online news conference on Thursday.
“This uptick is largely associated with the increasing number of cases reported from South Africa as the country enters its winter season when respiratory illnesses become more prevalent,” Impouma added.
Africa has seen a drop in COVID cases, with the WHO announcing earlier this month that weekly infections on the continent had been down for the longest time since the pandemic began.
However, cases began to increase last week in South Africa, the country with the most illnesses and deaths in Africa to date, and health officials there are looking for signs of a fifth infection wave.
“Just in the last week the country’s (South Africa’s) cases have doubled, and there is a small increase in hospitalisations. Although the Omicron variant continues to mutate, there is no current evidence to suggest that this new upsurge is linked to any new sub-lineages or a new variant,” the WHO’s Impouma said.
South Africa has recorded 6 372 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3776298.
According to data provided by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), this increase represents a 21.1% positivity rate.
In terms of hospital admissions, the NDoH said that there has been an increase of 62 admissions in the past 24 hours.
The cumulative number of recoveries now stand at 3 638 087 with a recovery rate of 96.3%.
The total number of vaccines administered in the last 24 hours stands at 10, 469 bringing the total number to 34 739 327.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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