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Coronavirus pandemic

Africa’s coronavirus infections top 53,000

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections and Algeria for the highest death toll, according to official data

© AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

PRETORIA, May 8. /TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa has reached 53,609 with 2,370 new infections recorded in the past 24 hours, while 2,061 patients died from the virus-related causes, the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa branch said Friday.

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South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections (8,232) and 161 deaths. Algeria, meanwhile, has the highest coronavirus death toll (483) and 5,182 infections. Egypt reported 469 fatalities and 7,588 cases, while Morocco identified 5,505 cases and 183 deaths, and Tunisia registered 1,025 cases and 43 fatalities.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is ranked second after South Africa with 3,526 coronavirus infections and 107 fatalities, followed by Ghana (3,091 and 18), Cameroon (2,265 and 108), Guinea (1,927 and 11), Ivory Coast (1,571 and 20) and Senegal (1,492 and 13).

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 3,900,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 270,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,344,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

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