COVID-19: Africa records 19,000 confirmed cases, 4,416 recoveries

Coronavirus testing

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo, says the number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Africa has risen to over 19,000.

The UN’s health agency gave the update on its official twitter account @WHOAFRO on Saturday.

“Over 19,000 COVID-19 cases reported on the African continent – with 4,416 recoveries and 991 deaths recorded.’’

The breakdown on the WHO African Region COVID-19 dashboard showed that South Africa, Algeria and Cameroon had continued to top the list of countries with the highest reported cases.

South Africa has 2,783 cases and 50 deaths followed by Algeria with 2,418 cases and 364 deaths, while Cameroon has 1,016 confirmed cases with 21 deaths.

According to the dashboard, South Sudan, Sao Tome and Principe, Burundi and Mauritania still remain countries with lowest confirmed cases in the region.

It showed that South Sudan and Sao Tome and Principe were the lowest confirmed cases, which had four cases each with zero death.

Burundi was second country with lowest confirmed cases with five reported cases and zero death.

Mauritania in the third category with lowest cases as the country had recorded seven confirmed cases with one death.

Also, the dashboard showed that COVID-19 cases had risen to 373 confirmed cases with 11 deaths in Nigeria.

Abba Kyari, the Chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari is one of the deaths of COVID-19.

The deceased had tested positive to the ravaging COVID-19, and had been receiving treatment in Lagos where he was said to have died on Friday, April 17, 2020.

Kyari, 67, was the highest-profile COVID-19 death in the West African country, which has 493 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.