Virus deaths, infections mount in largely unvaccinated Africa

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

With the continent lagging far behind in vaccination efforts, COVID-19 claimed at least 663 more lives across Africa over the past day, according to the latest figures by the Africa CDC on Monday.

The fatalities pushed the continent’s death toll to 194,823, while the number of infections swelled by 20,796 to reach 7,741,917, the data shows.

Of the five geographical regions of the continent, Southern Africa leads the case count with 3.7 million infections, followed by North Africa at 2.3 million, East Africa 904,200, West Africa 597,500, and Central Africa with 217,900.

The number of COVID-19 recoveries recorded throughout Africa stands at 6,878,449.

Vaccination coverage remains critically low in Africa, with just about 2.5% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people fully inoculated so far, the data shows.

Around 93.4 million doses out of 130.1 million – or 71.85% – supplied to the continent have been administered, according to the Africa CDC.

Some 4.51% of people have received one dose and 2.47% have been given two doses until now.

Morocco is the continent’s top performer in terms of vaccination, having administered some 31.2 million doses out of a total supply of around 32.1 million.

Around 47.9% of the country’s population of nearly 37 million has received one vaccine dose, while just over 36.7% has been fully vaccinated, according to the Africa CDC data.