The total number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across the African continent has reached 1,569,680 as of Sunday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.
The Africa CDC, a specialized healthcare agency of the African Union (AU) Commission, said in a statement that the number of deaths due to illnesses related to the pandemic reached 38,196 as of Sunday afternoon.
The Africa CDC said the number of people who have recovered from the infectious virus across the continent has reached 1,297,625 so far.
Amid the uneven impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on African countries, the Africa CDC said that the African countries most affected by the disease in terms of the number of positive cases include South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.
The Southern Africa region is the most COVID-19 affected region both in terms of the number of confirmed positive cases as well as the number of deaths. The Northern Africa region is the second most COVID-19-affected African region.
According to figures from the continental disease control and prevention agency, six African countries account for approximately 90 percent of the new COVID-19 cases reported since the last week, in which Morocco reporting 29 percent of the new cases, South Africa accounting 20 percent, Tunisia accounting 20 percent, Ethiopia accounting 10 percent, Libya accounting 8 percent as well as Kenya accounting 2 percent.
Countries reporting the highest incidence of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population over the past seven days in Africa also include Cabo Verde, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa and Eswatini, it was noted.
According to the Africa CDC, from the 55 members of the AU that are reporting COVID-19 epidemiologic data, 14 countries are reporting case fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of 2.9 percent.
These countries include the Sahrawi Republic, Chad, Sudan, Liberia, Niger, Egypt, Mali, Algeria, Angola, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Malawi.
