According to the African Union Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the total number of those infected in the organization's 55 member states is 4,599,868 and those recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours is 13,641, rising to 4,147,769 since the start of the pandemic.
Southern Africa remains the worst affected region, with 1,976,638 people infected and 62,355 deaths associated with contracting the disease. Within this region, South Africa, the country hardest hit by covid-19 on the continent, registers 1,588,221 cases and 54,557 deaths.
North Africa is the second hardest hit area, with 1,382,875 infected and 40,675 fatalities.
East Africa accounts for 613,554 infections and 11,608 deaths, while in West Africa the number of infections is 461,954 and the number of deaths 6105. In Central Africa, there are 164,847 cases of infection and 2617 deaths recorded.
Egypt, which is the second African country with the most deaths after South Africa, records 13,655 deaths and 232,905 infected, followed by Tunisia, with 11,122 deaths and 315,600 cases of infection. Morocco accounts for 512,656 cases of infection and 9043 deaths associated with covid-19.
Also among the most affected countries are Ethiopia, with 3795 deaths and 260,139 infections, Algeria, with 3299 deaths and 123,272 infected, and Libya, 3059 deaths among 179,193 infections.
Regarding the Portuguese-speaking countries, Mozambique records 819 deaths and 70,108 cases, followed by Angola (618 deaths and 27,529 cases of infection), Cape Verde (229 deaths and 25,159 cases), Equatorial Guinea (112 deaths and 7694 cases), Guinea-Bissau (67 deaths and 3738 cases) and São Tomé and Príncipe (35 deaths and 2314 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 3,244,598 deaths worldwide, resulting from more than 155.1 million cases of infection, according to an assessment by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
