By Addis Getachew
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) – The COVID-19 recovery rate in Africa stood at 72%, a figure which the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention described as 'good news'.
John Nkengasong was speaking on Thursday in a weekly news briefing held via video link.
He said 769,000 patients have fully recovered, translating to a 72% recovery rate.
Across all 55 African nations, he said, 24,000 people have died, with more than 1.07 million cases reported.
In the past week, an 8% increase was recorded in new cases, amounting to 79,200 new cases.
The continent averaged 11,000 new cases on average per day, Nkengasong said.
According to him, the rate of infections among health workers stood at 3.6%, as 42,000 health workers having been infected so far.
South Africa recorded 53% of all cases recorded in the continent, followed by Egypt 8.9%, Nigeria 4.5%, Ghana 3.9% and Algeria 3.4%.
More than 9 million tests have been conducted so far on the continent, he said.
The fatality rate stands at 2.26%.
