Africa’s cumulative Covid-19 cases to reach 10 million in coming days – WHO rep says

The pandemic has ravaged Africa’s households and brought businesses to its knees.

Kampala – January 7, 2022: Africa, like other continents, have seen its economic and social growth dwindling because of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The pandemic has ravaged Africa’s households and brought businesses to their knees. Sadly, nobody knows when the pandemic will end so people can live normally.

 According to the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), 9,756,457 people on the continent have been infected with the virus as of January 2, 2022.

Africa CDC data of the same above date also shows that 228,856 have died of the pandemic; 8,694,383 have recovered and 89,243,166 tests have been conducted.

In what seems to be an uphill task for African governments and their populations, World Health Organization (WHO) country representative in Uganda says the numbers are expected to surge in the coming days.

Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam says Friday the cumulative Covid-19 case numbers in Africa are poised to reach the 10 million mark in the coming days, as newly recorded cases on the 5th week in a row and 41 countries are in resurgence.

To end this acute phase of the pandemic, he reveals the goal must be for every country to vaccinate 70% of its population by mid-2022.

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Similarly, last year, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, called for an urgent acceleration of Covid-19 vaccination across Africa to save lives. “Vaccination is our best defence against the Covid-19 pandemic,” she added in December 2021.

Uganda 

The Minister of Health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, Friday says in the last 14 days, the country confirmed 19,413 cases with a daily average of 1,386 cases.

Aceng adds that Uganda has moved from the period of sustained containment where the positivity rate was below 5%. “The country is now in its third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

 So far, 12,085,428 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered to the population, according to the Minister.

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 “To date, 10,315,951 of the 22 million priority persons have received the first doses and 2,236,544 are vaccinated using Johnson and Johnson.”

Dr Aceng was updating the country on the Covid-19 situation as Uganda reopens schools on January 10. She adds that 1,769,477 have received the second dose and are fully vaccinated. 

“Considering it requires only one dose of J&J to be fully vaccinated, Uganda has fully vaccinated 4,006,021 people.” This represents vaccination coverage of 18.2%.

On administering booster dose, she says health workers, teachers and security forces are the first lots to be given.

 The rest of the population will start receiving at the end of March 2022.