NEARLY two years after its emergence and eventual declaration as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), Africa’s fatalities from COVID-19 have been less than five per cent of the global toll from the disease.
The region’s low fatalities came amidst poor health infrastructures and hygiene, including the horrible conditions that most people live in on the continent.
Checks by The ICIR showed that Africa’s total recorded deaths from the virus were 213,469 as at October 7. The total number of global deaths from the disease that day were 4.8 million.
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Africa’s contribution to the global toll was 4.4 per cent.
The region had 8.4 million cases of the virus, and the global total was 237.2 million, meaning the continent recorded 3.5 per cent of global cases.
Active cases on the continent were 506,258, while 7.7 million people had recovered from the virus. Africa consists of 58 nations.
Europe, comprising 48 countries, had recorded 59.9 million cases and 1.24 million deaths. About 54.8 million people had recovered from the disease, while 3.8 million cases remained active in the region.
North America, having 39 countries, had recorded 54 million cases. Total deaths were 1.1 million, while 42.1 million people recovered from the virus. The region still had 10.7 million active cases.
Asia, comprising 49 nations, recorded 76.7 million cases with 1.1 million deaths. About 73.4 million people recovered from the virus, while there were 2.1 million active cases.
South America, consisting of 14 countries, had 37.9 cases and 1.2 deaths. Over 36 million had recovered, and there were 804,817 active cases.
In Oceania, 3,126 had died from 247,325 cases of the pandemic, and 194,261 persons had recovered, leaving behind 49,938 active cases. The region has 13 countries.
Africa, comprising 58 nations, recorded its first case of the virus, through Egypt, in February 2020, nearly two months after the virus broke out in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.
Global cases of COVID-19 were 237.2 million (on October 7). Deaths from the pandemic stood at 4.8 million, and 214.3 million people had recovered from the virus.
Coronavirus forced the world into a lockdown for weeks in 2020, plunging nations’ economies into unprecedented crisis.
The WHO has approved at least four vaccines for administration against the virus, while countries are now coping with the ‘new normal,’ which the disease has foisted on the world.
Whereas Africa has recorded low deaths from the pandemic, it has also received the least vaccines.
“More than 5.7 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, but only two per cent of them in Africa,” said the WHO.
Africa currently has a population of 1.3 billion people, representing nearly 17 per cent of the world’s current 7.9 billion.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2022. Contact him via email @ [email protected].