In total, 1267 cases of infection have been reported on the continent since the beginning of the pandemic, the first of which was detected on 14 February in Egypt.
According to the Worldometer portal, which compiles almost in real time, information from the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from official country sources, scientific publications and news organizations, there are records of deaths by covid-19 in ten African countries: Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Sudan, Mauritius, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the latter two having recorded their first deaths.
According to a count made by Lusa at 3 pm, the continent still has 128 recovered, numbers that bring the total number of active infections down to 1099.
Algeria now has 15 deaths and 139 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, making it the African country with the highest number of fatalities caused by the covid-19 disease.
At the same time, the country is also the one with the highest number of recoveries: 65, with 59 active cases now.
Egypt, which has the highest number of infection cases in Africa (294), has ten deaths, followed by Burkina Faso, with four deaths (86 cases), and Morocco and Tunisia, also with three deaths in 109 and 75 cases, respectively.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, with 23 cases, Ghana, with 21, Mauritius, with 18, Gabon, with five and Sudan, with two, all register a fatal victim.
In the last few hours, more than 150 new cases were announced in 14 countries, including Mozambique, Eritrea and Uganda, which presented their first cases.
There were also new cases in Essuatini, Niger, Zambia, Tanzania, Mauritius, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Tunisia and Morocco.
In addition to the countries already mentioned, there are cases of covid-19 in South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Benin, Liberia, Mauritania, Central African Republic , Chad, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea-Conakry, Somalia, Togo, Madagascar and Zimbabwe.
The new coronavirus, responsible for the covid-19 pandemic, has already infected more than 271,000 people worldwide, of which at least 11,401 have died.
Mozambique has become the third Portuguese-speaking African country to register cases of covid-19 in its territory, after cases in Angola and Cape Verde.
According to an announcement made by the Mozambican Minister of Health, Armindo Tiago, the infected person is “a Mozambican, over 75 years old, who returned from a trip to the United Kingdom in the middle of this month”.
Rwanda was one of the last African states to enact isolation and to confine its population to contain the spread of the pandemic in the country.
Ethiopia received 1.1 million test kits, six million masks and 60,000 protective suits, a donation made by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma.
Zimbabwe, which had already declared the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus as a "national disaster", criticized the "irresponsibility of many believers" who went to churches in the capital, Harare, despite the government banning concentrations with more than 100 people .
In recent days, WHO has expressed its concern about outbreaks of covid-19 in the African continent, where health systems lack the resources to combat the effects of the contagious disease.
Last week, WHO Director-General, Ethiopian Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that "the best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst". "I believe that Africa must wake up, my continent must wake up," he added.
