WHO: COVID deaths in Africa increased by 43 percent in one week

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Africa recorded a 43 percent rise in COVID-19 mortality within the last one week.

Speaking at a virtual press conference on Africa’s COVID-19 update on Thursday, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said fatalities increased from 4,384 deaths recorded in the previous week to 6,273 in the week ending on July 11.

According to NAN, she said Africa is now less than one percent away from the weekly peak reached in January when 6,294 deaths were recorded.

She said Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia accounted for 83 percent of the new deaths recorded in the past week.

Speaking further, Moeti said the continent’s fatality rate currently stands at 2.6 percent against the global average of 2.2 percent.

“COVID-19 cases have risen for eight straight weeks, topping six million on July 13,” she said.

“Over the past month, Africa recorded an additional one million cases. This is the shortest time it’s taken so far to add one million cases.

“Comparatively, it took around three months to move from four million to five million cases. This COVID-19 surge is the fastest the continent has seen.”

She attributed the surge to public fatigue with key health measures and an increased spread of variants.

“To date, the Delta variant, which is currently the most transmissible of all variants, has been detected in 21 African countries, while the Alpha variant is in 35 countries and Beta in 30,” she said.

“Deaths have climbed steeply for the past five weeks. This is a clear warning sign that hospitals in the most impacted countries are reaching a breaking point.

“Under-resourced health systems in countries are facing dire shortages of health workers, supplies, equipment and infrastructure needed to provide care to severely ill COVID-19 patients.”

She said the spike in cases comes amid inadequate vaccine supplies, adding that the continent had vaccinated 52 million people since the start of the vaccine rollout in March.

According to her, this accounts for just 1.6 percent of the 3.5 billion people vaccinated worldwide.

She said only 18 million people in Africa were fully vaccinated, representing 1.5 percent of the continent’s population, compared with over 50 percent in some high-income countries.

“The double barrier of vaccine scarcity and treatment challenges is seriously undermining effective response to the surging pandemi,” Moeti said.

“However, with the expected fresh vaccine shipments and strong preventive measures, we can still turn the tide against the virus.”