The World Health Organisation (WHO), Regional Office for Africa located in Brazzaville, Congo, says there are over 1.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases on the African continent.
The UN health agency gave the update on its regional official Twitter account @WHOAFRO.
WHO stated on its dashboard that there were over 1.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases on the African continent- with more than 1.3 million recoveries and 41,000 deaths cumulatively.
South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia were countries with the highest number of reported cases.
According to the dashboard: South Africa reported 714,246 cases and 18, 944 deaths; Ethiopia 92, 858 cases with 1,419 deaths, while Kenya had 48,790 reported cases and 896 deaths.
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Meanwhile, Dr Belinda Herring, Virologist at WHO Africa Region Office, in a video spoke, about the deployment and rollout of the new COVID-19 rapid diagnostic tests in Africa.
“Rapid diagnostic tests are more efficient, affordable and easy to use and will be a game-changer for testing and diagnostics in the region,’’ she said.
According to her, countries will be able to increase the number of testing they do from hundreds to thousands.
“Rapid test kits are cheaper and easier to use than the PCR, with rapid diagnosis test kits; you can get a result within an hour and you will be able to test more people.
“WHO is going to support countries to procure and use the kits.’’
