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 New cases in Africa were up 24% over the past week, with data from
governments and the World Health Organization showing it had 512,499
confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 11,930 deaths.
"The pandemic is gaining full momentum," John Nkengasong, head of
the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a
virtual news briefing from Addis Ababa.
Nkengasong said African countries, many of which do not have
reliable data, must adopt an aggressive approach to encourage the
wearing of face masks and ramp up testing and tracing.
"This will save lives and save (the) economy."
Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Algeria account for 71% of
infections on the continent, Nkengasong said.
Some governments have been reluctant to acknowledge epidemics or to
expose crumbling health systems to outside scrutiny, while others
are either too poor or conflict-ridden to carry out significant
testing.
Nkengasong said it was inevitable that as cases rise, hospitals will
become overwhelmed.
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"That is something that is happening already. We will continue to see it as the
pandemic expands," he added.
Although many have also started gradually easing lockdowns to reopen hard-hit
economies, governments are conscious that opening up too quickly could lead to a
spike in new cases.
The African Union Commission said on Thursday it had launched a consortium for
vaccine clinical trials to be headed by the Africa CDC, which aimed to secure
more than 10 late stage vaccine clinical trials as early as possible.
South Africa and Egypt are already running human trials for a potential vaccine.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Omar Mohammed and Alexander Smith)
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