Just a month ago in May 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that nearly a quarter of a billion Africans could contract coronavirus in the first year of the pandemic, with between 150,000 and 190,000 of them dying. Several organisations also made various predictions concerning the spread and death toll of the virus in Africa. Therefore, statistics must be closely monitored to ascertain how Africa is faring.

Coronavirus cases in African have surpassed 295,000 cases as the death toll has exceeded 7,600. South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana have been the three countries with the most cases on the continent. Lesotho remains the country with the least cases, with about four confirmed cases, followed by Seychelles with about 11 and Namibia with about 36.

In South Africa alone, confirmed cases have now exceeded 92,000 as the death toll is close to 2,000. Morocco’s Health Ministry reported 539 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the biggest daily rise so far. There are now 9,613 confirmed cases in Morocco, with a mortality rate of 2.2% and a recovery rate of 84.5%.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, health care workers believe to have been exposed to coronavirus earlier than detected. They believe to have built a sort of immunity to the virus which allows them to work relentlessly to combat it.

Kenyan hospitals report fewer patients coming with symptoms of the virus but instead receiving corpses. Mostly as a result of the country’s dusk-dawn curfew limiting night time admissions and increasing death toll.
In Nigeria, there are more patients and more corpses, especially in northern Nigeria. To make matters worse, Doctor in the country are on strike to contend for their wages. The country now has over 20,000 confirmed cases, over 6,000 recoveries and 518 deaths.

Egypt is also currently dealing with health workers who have denounced unsafe working conditions, personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages, insufficient infection control training, limited testing of health care workers, and lack of access to vital health care. The government, in return, reportedly threatened these health workers with death or a jail sentence. Meanwhile, the country has over 55,000 confirmed cases with over 14,000 recoveries and over 2,000 deaths.

However, countries like Ethiopia and Burkina Faso are faring quite well. In Burkina Faso, there are 903 confirmed cases. 814 recoveries and 53 deaths. Ethiopia saw a much slimmer percentage on the death toll with over 4,000 cases, over 1,000 recoveries and 74 deaths. Fortunately, Seychelles is faring really well with 11 confirmed cases and 11 recoveries.