COVID-19: Africa caseload surges past 5 million, vaccines barely moving
The confirmed Covid-19 cases across Africa have hit 5,057,604 with less than one per cent of the population being vaccinated.
A total of 55 African countries have reported 135,003 deaths while over 4.4 million people have recovered from the disease even as nearly 28.2 million vaccinations have been administered, latest data from Africa CDC shows.
South Africa remains the most affected country, reporting about 1.8 million positive cases and over 57,000 deaths.
To date, South Africa has administered Covid-19 shots to more than 1.7 million people, representing just over one per cent of her 60 million population including nearly 480,000 health workers who were inoculated as part of a study trial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
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Currently, the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been hit by further delays after authorities decided to discard at least two million Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
In a statement, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority said they decided not to issue the vaccines, citing possible contamination.
Other most-affected countries include Morocco with about 524,000, Tunisia 370,000, Ethiopia 274,000, Egypt 274,000, Libya 190,000 and Kenya 176,000 cases.
Kenya has so far vaccinated about 987,000 people against the COVID-19 virus. Out of these, 298,334 are aged 58 and above, health workers 168,056, teachers 154,262, security officers 83,766 and 282,859 persons drawn from other categories have received their first dose.
At the same time over 128,000 people have received their second AstraZeneca vaccine dose. Of these, 37,918 are health workers, others 33,926, those aged above 58 years 34,269, teachers 13,673 while 8,958 are security officers.
Equally, the county has vaccinated less than one per cent of her adult population.
In the last 24 hours, Kenya has recorded 456 new COVID-19 cases from a sample size of 5,626 tested marking a positivity rate of 8.1 per cent.
As of June 15, the total confirmed cases in Kenya now stand at 176,137 out of the 1,876,105 cumulative tests done so far.
A total of 975 patients are currently admitted in various health facilities countrywide, while 4,716 patients are under the home based isolation and care program.
