News

Coronavirus Breakout : Africa cross 100K cases and looks like to slow down

Africa’s coronavirus cases have surpassed 100,000, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, as the continent with many fragile health systems has not yet seen the high numbers of other parts of the world.

More than 3,100 people have died from COVID-19 across the continent of 1.3 billion people.

The African continent has seen roughly the same number of new cases in the past week as the week before, Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said Thursday, adding that “we hope that trend continues” instead of a rapid exponential increase.

While early lockdowns in many of Africa’s 54 countries slowed the growth of the pandemic, Nkengasong said “that doesn’t mean Africa has been spared.”

But he said health officials are not seeing a lot of community deaths or “massive flooding of our hospitals” because of COVID-19.

He said the African continent needs to test about 10 times the number of people it has already tested for the coronavirus. It should strive to test at least 1% of the population, or 13 million people, but so far only 1.3 million to 1.4 million tests have been conducted. Shortages of testing and medical equipment remain a problem.

Countries with fragile health systems and a recent history of conflict like Somalia and South Sudan remain a worry for health officials as cases rise. And in Tanzania, where the president claims the virus has been defeated by prayer, the government hasn’t updated its case numbers in three weeks.

South Africa has been testing assertively and leads the continent with more than 19,000 cases.

Africa’s worst-case scenario, according to published models, would see more than 3 million infected and more than 300,000 deaths and “that would be overwhelming for sure,” Nkengasong said. But he warned that “models are only as good as the assumptions we put in there.”

Matthew Velter

With 5 years of experience as an editor, Matthew has been a crucial part of eTrendy Stock since its inception. He looks after the editing of news content published on eTrendy Stock. Apart from investing his time in editing, he also provides well-researched news articles for the U.S. niche. Mathew studied at University of central Florida.

Recent Posts

NodeOps Network $NODE Token Generation Event Sells Out in Minutes via Binance Wallet, Debuts Across Top Global Exchanges

Dubai, UAE, 30th June 2025, ZEX PR WIRE, NodeOps Network is thrilled to announce the…

1 hour ago

LF Labs (LF Coin) Breakout Steals Spotlight as Shiba Inu Price Targets $0.000017 Return

Dubai, UAE, 30th June 2025, ZEX PR WIRE, LF Labs (LF Coin) gained momentum today…

1 hour ago

How Leclerc & Co. Is Redefining Affordable Luxury in the Watch Industry

In a market flooded with mass-produced designs and influencer-driven hype, a new contender is emerging…

2 days ago

Arbra Unveils Tokenized Private Equity Basket with SpaceX, Ramp, and Varda on Colb

London, UK, 27th June 2025, Arbra Partners Group (“Arbra”), the global financial services company, has…

3 days ago

Calyptus Launches New AI Hiring Platform To Close the Global Productivity Gap

London, UK, 27th June 2025, ZEX PR WIRE, Calyptus, the hiring platform known for verifying…

3 days ago

Unleashing Ghostdriver by Tearline: Browser-Native AI Agent for the Seamless Web2 and Web3 Task Execution

British Virgin Islands, BVI, 26th June 2025, ZEX PR WIRE, In an era where every second…

4 days ago