The mortality rate of the new coronavirus in Africa now stands at 2.5 percent of recorded cases, above the world average of 2.2 percent, explained the director of that specialized African Union (AU) agency, John Nkengasong, at the Africa CDC weekly press conference via the Internet from Addis Ababa.
The number of cases on the continent has increased 14 percent per week over the past month.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Africa officially remains one of the least affected continents by SARS-CoV-2 contamination, with 3.3 million cases of Covid-19 and nearly 82,000 deaths, according to the agency.
But the increased mortality rate marks a break from the first wave, which was below the global average, Nkengasong said.
"We're seeing a reversal," the director of Africa CDC added.
"This is one of the remarkable features of the second wave that we have to fight hard," he warned.
Currently, 21 African countries have mortality rates above the 2.2 percent world average.
Among the examples given by the CRC are Sudan, with a mortality rate of 6.2 percent, Egypt with 5.5 percent, Liberia with 4.4 percent, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) - a member of the AU - with 11.8 percent.
This increase in mortality is caused by the accelerated number of cases, which is clogging the continent's health systems, according to Mr. Nkengasong.
The dynamics of the epidemic "exceeds the capacity of nurses and doctors to manage patients," he explained. "Patients are not getting the attention and care they need because we have a limited number of beds and supplies.
Nkengasong particularly stressed the need for oxygen, which is used to treat severe forms of covid-19, which are becoming "critical.
In Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, health officials report having to "choose which patients to treat and whom to refuse care," he said.
The AU announced last week that it has ordered 270 million vaccines to be distributed across the continent, in addition to the vaccines planned through the Covax scheme, an initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and private partners aimed at providing equitable access to vaccines.
The African Union is in negotiations with Russia and China to order additional doses of vaccines, but "there is not yet an agreement," Nkengasong said.
Africa has recorded a further 922 deaths from covid-19 in the last 24 hours for a total of 81,861, and 28,109 new cases of infection, according to the latest official pandemic data on the continent.
According to Africa CDC, the number of infected is 3,337,028 and the number of recovered in the 55 member states of the organization in the last 24 hours was 28,621, for a total of 2,784,501 since the beginning of the pandemic.
