Total COVID cases in Africa top 10 million: watchdog

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Africa has registered a total of more than 10 million coronavirus cases, according to figures from the African Union's health watchdog seen by AFP on Sunday.

Data released by the Africa Centres for Disease Control showed that as of Saturday there had been 10,028,508 cases reported by the African Union's 55 member states since the outbreak of the pandemic.

A total of 231,157 deaths were recorded, the CDC said.

Infections have soared since the highly contagious Omicron variant was discovered in South Africa in late November, prompting a number of countries on the continent to impose new restrictions.

However, vaccine uptake in Africa, home to nearly 1.2 billion people, has been low, due to poor access to jabs and some vaccine hesitancy.

© 2022 AFP

Citation: Total COVID cases in Africa top 10 million: watchdog (2022, January 9) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-total-covid-cases-africa-million.html
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