The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed that 2,079,911 confirmed cumulative cases or 3.5 percent of global COVID-19 cases have so far been registered in Africa. There are 1,760,259 recoveries accounting for 4.6 percent of global numbers, with 49,993 deaths accounting for 3.6 percent. Meanwhile, there are 59,365,258 cumulative confirmed cases in the world with 38,018,515 recoveries and 1,399,782 COVID-19 related deaths.
Despite the African continent accounting for 3.5 percent of the global confirmed cases of COVID-19, the four member countries in the Mano River Union (MRU) basin including Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire, have registered a total of 37, 971 cases representing 1.8 percent of all confirmed cases in the continent.
Accordingly, Sierra Leone has registered 2,406 cumulative cases representing 0.17 of all cases in the region with an attack rate of 33.79 per 100,000 population; Cote d’Ivoire has recorded 21,148 cases representing 1.46 percent with an attack rate of 82.61 per 100,000; Guinea with 12,863 cumulative cases representing 0.89 percent with an attack rate of 89.62; and Liberia, 1,554 cases representing 0.11 percent with an attack rate of 30.5 per 100,000 population.
On gains made in recoveries, the sub-regional body has returned 35,854 persons free of COVID-19 accounting for 2 percent of all recoveries in the continent. Sierra Leone has registered 1,829 recoveries while Cote d’Ivoire has 20,819 recovered persons; Guinea, 11,877; and Liberia, 1,331.
The continent’s death figures are 3.9 percent of the global cumulative 1,399,782 deaths.
The sub-regional body has recorded a total of 362 or 0.7 percent of all deaths in the continent. This death figure shows that Sierra Leone has 74, Cote d’Ivoire 131, Guinea 75 and Liberia 82 deaths.
The WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, while cautioning on the global pandemic said, “This is not the time for complacency. While we continue to receive encouraging news about COVID-19 vaccines and remain cautiously optimistic about the potential for new tools to start to arrive in the coming months, right now we are extremely concerned by the surge in cases we are seeing in some countries particularly in Europe and the Americas. Health workers and health systems are being pushed to the breaking point.”
The WHO DG informed that, “WHO has issued guidance and tools to increase capacity for the medical and public health workforce and supplied and facilitates to manage COVID-19 patients. At present, WHO has 150 emergency medical teams assisting countries in the planning and implementation of their emergency response.”
By Mohamed Kabba