Africa's virus tally tops 8M as vaccine crunch bites

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) – The number of COVID-19 cases in Africa has passed 8 million as the continent’s vaccination coverage remains abysmally low, according to latest figures from the Africa CDC on Saturday.

The overall tally swelled by 18,465 over the past day and now stands at 8,008,802, including a death toll of 202,534.

There has been no decline in daily infections on the continent in recent days, largely because of the lax speed of vaccinations due to a dearth of supply.

A mere 2.96% of Africa’s population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 5.12% has received one dose until now, the data showed.

Some 111.3 million doses out of 144.5 million – or 76.97% – supplied to the continent have been administered to date.

According to the Africa CDC, over 7.28 million patients have recovered on the continent, where close to 68.6 million tests have been conducted so far.

Of the five geographical regions in Africa, Southern Africa has recorded more than 3.8 million cases, North Africa 2.4 million, East Africa 936,700, West Africa 624,400, and Central Africa 224,400 cases.

At least 105,500 people have died from the virus in Southern Africa, 65,100 in North Africa, 19,600 in East Africa, 9,100 in West Africa, and 3,200 in Central Africa.

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