The death rate from COVID-19 in Africa “is becoming very worrying” as it increases more than the global one, said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the continent.
The death rate for the continent’s 54 countries is now 2.6%, while the global one is 2.2%, John Nkengasong told reporters.
Twenty African nations, including South Africa, South Sudan and Congo, have higher rates than the world average, as the rebound of the virus in some parts of the region shows death figures much higher than those of the first wave of the year past.
The number of confirmed deaths in Africa since the start of the pandemic is close to 100,000 people, with more than 3.6 million infections.
“It would be a tragedy if we started to normalize these deaths,” Nkengasong explained.
With the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines to the continent, 16 countries submitted applications for a total of 114 million doses of the 670 that the African Union has obtained from various sources, he added.
Nkengasong did not name the nations, but noted that “we hope that in the next two or three weeks they will receive their vaccines.”
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