Africa seeing uptick in COVID cases driven by S.Africa, WHO says
JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI/DAKAR (Reuters) -Africa is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 infections, largely pushed by a doubling in instances reported in South Africa, the World Well being Group mentioned on Thursday, urging folks throughout the continent to proceed to get vaccinated.
Africa had been experiencing a lull in COVID instances, with the WHO earlier this month pointing to the longest-running decline in weekly infections on the continent because the begin of the pandemic.
However final week instances began to select up in South Africa — the nation that has recorded probably the most infections and deaths in Africa to this point — and well being authorities there are monitoring for indicators of a fifth an infection wave.
“This week new COVID-19 instances and deaths on the continent elevated for the primary time after a decline of greater than two months for instances and one month for deaths,” Benido Impouma, director for communicable and non-communicable illnesses on the WHO’s Africa workplace, advised a web based information convention.
Impouma mentioned there was no proof as but to counsel the rise in instances was linked to any new sub-lineages or a brand new coronavirus variant.
Helen Rees, govt director of the College of the Witwatersrand’s Reproductive Well being and HIV Institute in Johannesburg, advised the identical information convention that an rising share of South Africa’s COVID instances have been the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of the Omicron variant.
However she mentioned the nation had up to now not seen an enormous enhance in mortality or intensive care admissions.
Individually, the WHO additionally mentioned on Thursday that Africa was witnessing a surge in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses together with measles, polio and yellow fever.
“The rise in outbreaks of different vaccine-preventable illnesses is a warning signal. As Africa works exhausting to defeat COVID-19, we should not neglect different well being threats,” WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti mentioned in a press release.
(Reporting by Alexander Successful, Hereward Holland and Sofia ChristensenEditing by Estelle Shirbon and Gareth Jones)
