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Africa’s coronavirus cases top 540,000, WHO reports

Egypt has the biggest coronavirus death toll of 3,617

PRETORIA, July 10. /TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa reached 540,207 after increasing by 20,009 in the past 24 hours, while 475 new deaths from virus-related causes across the continent were identified in the same period to bring the total to 12,434, the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa branch said Friday, adding that 264,000 patients recovered on the continent.

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections (238,339) and 3,720 deaths. Egypt, meanwhile, has the biggest coronavirus death toll of 3,617 with 79,254. Algeria reported 988 fatalities.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is ranked second after South Africa with 30,748 coronavirus infections and 689 fatalities, followed by Ghana (23,463 and 129).

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 12,404,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 557,700 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 7,235,600 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.