North Africa is the hardest hit region on the continent with over 7,500 cases.
Despite being one of the more recent continents to be hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the number of cases in Africa today reached 17,247, according to daily statistics from the African Union Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 on the continent, 910 people have died after contracting the virus. Over 3,000 people have recovered.
North Africa is the hardest hit region in Africa and has recorded 7,524 cases of the novel coronavirus. Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco have all recorded over 2,000 cases.
Egypt currently has 2,505 confirmed COVID-19 cases, while 2,161 people in Algeria have been diagnosed with the virus.
The Moroccan Ministry of Health today confirmed 227 new cases, bringing the country’s total to 2,251.
Tunisia still has a relatively low number of cases, at 780. Mauritania, meanwhile, has reported only 7 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
West Africa has 3,992 cases of the virus and 100 people have died from COVID-19-related complications. Niger has reported 584 confirmed cases and 407 people in Nigeria have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Cote d’Ivoire has reported 654 cases, Ghana has 641 confirmed cases, while Guinea has reported 404 cases.
Burkina Faso has reported 542 COVID-19 cases and Senegal has a total of 314 diagnosed patients.
Southern Africa has a total of 2,686 cases. South Africa, where 2,506 have tested positive for the virus, is the hardest hit country in the region and on the continent.
East African governments have confirmed 1,620 COVID-19 cases, with Djibouti (435), Mauritius (324), and Madagascar (110) reporting the highest number of cases in the region.
In Central Africa health authorities have diagnosed 1,425 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, with Cameroon reporting 855. The Democratic Republic of Congo has 267 COVID-19 patients.
The leap past the 17,000 mark comes as warnings fly in from international NGOs about the devastating impacts the virus could have in Africa.
A recent report from Oxfam cited statistics from the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-Wider) study, conducted at King’s College London and the Australian National University.
The research project found that the novel coronavirus lockdown could push the economy in sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region back 30 years.
The UNU-Wider research paper found that continued lockdowns would hit the MENA region and sub-Saharan Africa the hardest, leading to a 20% drop in average income and pushing 548 million people into poverty. The report uses three World Bank poverty classifications, including the extreme poverty line of $1.20 per day.
Oxfam also reported that, by the end of the pandemic, the UNU-Wider research suggests over half of the world’s 7.8 billion people will be living in poverty.
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