PRETORIA, July 21. /TASS/. More than 15,000 confirmed coronavirus cases were registered in African countries in the past 24 hours, with the overall number of such cases exceeding 736,000, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Office for Africa said on Tuesday.

The overall number of COVID-19 cases in Africa currently stands at 736,214, with 15,027 cases confirmed during the past day. The number of coronavirus-associated deaths amounts to 15,1426, with 260 fatalities registered during the day. As many as 392,000 patients have recovered.

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of Africa’s coronavirus cases and fatalities - 373,628 and 5,173, respectively. Egypt is second after South Africa in terms of coronavirus-associated deaths and cases - 4,352 and 88,402, respectively. As many as 1,087 coronavirus-related deaths were reported from Algeria.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is second after South Africa in terms of coronavirus cases (37,225 cases and 801 fatalities). Next is Ghana (28,430 cases and 153 deaths).

WHO specialists have voiced concern over the coronavirus morbidity rates in African countries. Thus, the number of COVID cases increased by 69% in Namibia, by 57% in Zambia, by 50% in Madagascar, by 31% in Kenya, and by 30% in South Africa over the past week.

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, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 14,874,200 people have been infected worldwide and more than 613,600 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 8,929,200 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.