Africa registered over 251,000 new cases of Covis-19 in the seven days ending on Sunday July 4th, which was a spike of 20% over the previous week.
This According to the World Health Organisation is the highest number of infections in a week ever recorded in Africa.
Unfortunately, according to WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti, things are going to get worse before they start getting better.
In Uganda, the National Planning Authority Executive Director Dr Joseph Muvawala expressed cautious optimism on Wednesday saying the rate of infection has started increasing at a decreasing rate. This means that although the number of infections is growing in absolute terms, in percentage terms the country has started registering a smaller percentage growth in successive weeks.
But Muvawala warned against complacency, saying that although the tough measures instituted by President Yoweri Museveni have started to show hope statistically, people must not risk safety in search of convenience, and should continue adhering to the anti-coronavirus SOPs.
Sixteen African countries are now in resurgence, with Malawi and Senegal added this week, joining others that include Uganda, South Africa and DRC.
Indeed, WHO’s Moeti has revealed that the Covid-19 spread in Africa has now worsened to doubling every 18 days, yet previously it was taking 21 days to double.
The real step that will be effective however is the vaccination of a critical number of people. In the past two weeks, more than 1.6 million doses were delivered to Africa through the COVAX facility. More than 20 million Janssen vaccine and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses are expected to arrive in Africa soon from the United States, and other significant donations to the continent will be coming in later from Norway and Sweden.
So far, 16 million Africans, less than 2% of the continent’s population, have been vaccinated.
