South Africa’s COVID-19 cases top 880,000

ABUJA, Nigeria

South Africa registered 7,552 new cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the country’s total number of infections to 883,687, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.

A total of 166 people have died from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 23,827, while 774,585 of those infected have recovered.

The total number of tests conducted so far is 5,968,692.

Africa has reported more than 2.40 million COVID-19 cases so far.

Since it emerged last December, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 1.63 million lives in 191 countries and regions.

More than 73.61 million cases have been reported worldwide, with over 41 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

While the US, India, and Brazil remain the worst-hit countries in terms of the number of cases, Europe is in the grip of a devastating second wave of infections.​​​​​​​

*Writing by Merve Berker in Ankara.