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Coronavirus pandemic

Africa’s coronavirus cases top 1.73 million

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections

© AP Photo/Sunday Alamba

PRETORIA, October 29. /TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa reached 1,737,550 after 9,613 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours, the eNCA TV channel reported Thursday citing the regional World Health Organization (WHO) office.

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Coronavirus cases hit all-time high weekly number of over 2.8 million — WHO

The number of coronavirus-related fatalities went up by 197 in the past 24 hours to reach 41,782, while more than 1.4 million people recovered.

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections (717,851) and deaths (19,053). Egypt, meanwhile, has recorded 6,222 virus-related deaths and 106,877 infections. Algeria reported 1,922 fatalities.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is ranked second after South Africa with 62,224 coronavirus infections and 1,135 fatalities, followed by Ghana (47,775 and 316).

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed 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.

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