Almost half of COVID-19 patients in Africa have recovered, says ACDC


Devdiscourse News Desk | Cape Town | Updated: 03-07-2020 16:13 IST | Created: 03-07-2020 16:13 IST
Almost half of COVID-19 patients in Africa have recovered, says ACDC
File photo Image Credit: Twitter (@AfricaCDC)
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  • South Africa

African Centre for Disease Control (ACDC) has said that almost half of the over 400,000 persons infected by COVID-19 in the African continent have recovered from the disease, according to a news report by Premium Times.

Since the world's poorest continent saw its first case, in Egypt in mid-February, there has been some 414, 000 cases and about 10, 260 deaths so far.

Earlier, several projections had suggested that the contagion would balloon swiftly and instantly overwhelm Africa's shaky health systems once it hits the continent.

Africa could see 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus even under the best-case scenario, according to modeling by the Imperial College London.

Under the worst-case scenario with no interventions against the virus, Africa could see 3.3 million deaths and 1.2 billion infections, a report by the UN Economic Commission for Africa said.

But the fears that Africa would be hit extremely hard by the pandemic have not come to fruition, yet. Compared to other regions, Africa is the least affected so far, accounting for only about 5 percent of global cases.

In the U.S. the hardest-hit country, only about a million of the nearly three million infected persons have recovered after treatment despite the country's strategic response and relatively sound health system.

The relatively improved recovery rate of almost 50 percent in Africa might have raised hopes that African countries may be spared the worst of the pandemic, but widespread under testing reported across the continent is undermining any progress made, health experts say.

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