Africa's virus tally tops 6.5M as vaccinations remain critically low

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

The number of coronavirus cases in Africa is now over 6.5 million as the continent lags far behind in vaccination efforts, according to latest data from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday.

The death toll across the continent stands at 165,294, while the number of recoveries is above 5.71 million, the data showed.

Nearly 58.2 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted throughout Africa to date.

Of the continent’s five geographical regions, Southern Africa leads the infections count with over 3.1 million cases, North Africa is at 1.9 million, East Africa 786,400, West Africa 519,800, and Central Africa stands at 203,000.

With more than 2.4 million cases, South Africa is the worst-hit country on the continent, followed by Morocco with around 581,500, Tunisia 573,400, Egypt 284,000, Ethiopia 278,700, Libya 237,000, Kenya 198,000, Zambia 192,300, Nigeria 171,300, Algeria 163,700, and Ghana with some 102,100 infections.

Vaccination woes

A mere 1.39% of Africa’s total population of some 1.3 billion people have been fully vaccinated so far, according to the Africa CDC data.

The total number of doses received throughout the continent stands at around 82.8 million, of which 61 million – 73.69% – have been administered, the figures showed.

Morocco is the continent’s top performer in terms of vaccination, having fully vaccinated some 26.39% of its population of over 36.9 million.

The North African country has received some 26.8 million doses to date and administered around 21.3 million.

Egypt, a country of some 102 million people, has received around 7.3 million jabs and has administered close to 5 million shots, fully vaccinating 1.35% of its population.

South Africa has stocked over 8.74 million doses and administered some 5.55 million jabs, meaning a mere 0.57% of its population of some 59.3 million has been fully vaccinated, the data showed.