According to the African Union Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the total number of those infected with the new coronavirus in the organization's 55 member states is 4,270,903 and that of those recovered 3,812,857, up 11,619 in the last 24 hours.
Southern Africa remains the worst affected region, with 1,915,955 people infected and 60,290 deaths associated with the disease on Monday. Within this region, South Africa, the country worst hit by covid-19 on the continent, registers 1,551,964 cases and 52,987 deaths.
North Africa is the second hardest hit by the pandemic, with 1,261,192 infected and 36,281 fatalities.
East Africa counts 518,306 infections and 9288 deaths, while in West Africa the number of infections is 438,183 and the number of deaths is 5758. Central Africa has 137,267 cases and 2231 deaths.
Egypt, which is the second African country with the most deaths after South Africa, has 12,163 deaths and 204,965 infected, followed by Morocco with 8850 deaths and 498,197 cases.
Among the most affected countries are also Tunisia, with 8965 deaths and 260,044 cases, Algeria, with 3105 deaths and 117,530 infected, and Ethiopia, with 2963 deaths and 215,189 infections.
In relation to the Portuguese-speaking countries, Mozambique records 782 deaths and 68,119 cases, followed by Angola (542 deaths and 22,631 cases of infection), Cape Verde (173 deaths and 17,871 cases), Equatorial Guinea (103 deaths and 7008 cases), Guinea-Bissau (66 deaths and 3662 cases) and São Tomé and Príncipe (34 deaths and 2232 cases).
The first case of covid-19 in Africa appeared in Egypt on February 14, 2020, and Nigeria was the first sub-Saharan African country to record cases of infection on February 28.
The covid-19 pandemic has caused at least 2,847,182 deaths worldwide, resulting from more than 130.6 million cases of infection, according to an assessment by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
