Funeral staff with personal protective equipment dedicates a casket during the funeral of a COVID-19 victim, amid a nationwide closure of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Olifantsvlei Cemetery, southwest of Joburg, South Africa January 6, 2021.
Siphiwe Sibeko | Reuters
New and more contagious variants of Covid-19 are spreading across Africa, causing a spike in infections and deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
More than 175,000 new cases and more than 6,200 deaths were reported across the continent in the week leading up to Thursday, WHO said in an update, while the infection rate rose 50% between December 29 and January 25 compared to the previous four weeks. . .
The death rate doubled to 15,000 over the same period, concentrated in 10 mostly South and North African countries, with 22 countries now seeing infection rates rise.
“The variant first discovered in South Africa has spread rapidly outside Africa and so what keeps me up at night now is that it is very likely to be circulating in some African countries,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. a virtual press conference on Thursday.
The variant, first discovered in South Africa, is a record-breaking infection in the subcontinent and has now been identified in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya and the French Indian Ocean in Mayotte, Zambia, WHO confirmed along with 24 countries outside Africa. .
Meanwhile, the highly contagious species initially discovered in the UK has now made its way to Nigeria and The Gambia.
The Africa CDC has set up sequencing labs across the continent, and the WHO called on all countries to send at least 20 samples per month to the sequencing labs to help coordinate a targeted response.
“In addition to the new variants, COVID-19 fatigue and the aftermath of end-of-year gatherings risk creating a perfect storm and powering Africa’s second wave and overwhelming health facilities,” said Moeti.
“Africa is at a crossroads. We need to hold on to our weapons and redouble the tactics that we know work so well. That is wearing a mask, washing hands and keeping safe social distance. Countless lives depend on it.”
Infections have fallen slightly over the past week in South Africa, the hardest-hit country on a continent that has largely avoided the exponential spread of the virus, causing many major economies to stall at various points over the past year.
Friday morning, there were 1,437,798 cases of Covid-19 and 43,105 deaths in South Africa. The entire continent has reported about 3.5 million cases and 88,985 deaths, according to a BBC collection of data collected by Johns Hopkins University.