26 June,2021 06:58 AM IST | Nairobi | Agencies
A medical worker receives a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at the Jabra Hospital for Emergency and Injuries in Sudan’s capital Khartoum. Pic/AFP
The number of Covid-19 cases in Africa has increased at an unprecedented pace as the continent grapples amid the ongoing third wave that has posed a dire threat to the continent's public health infrastructure, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said. In a statement on Thursday, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said the continent is grappling with a resurgence fuelled by the easing of containment measures, cold weather and the presence of new variants, reports Xinhua news agency.
"The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder. With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa's worst yet," Moeti said in the statement. She said the continent can avert the worst outcomes as it struggles with the third wave of infections, subject to strict adherence to public health protocols combined with speedy vaccine roll-out. The latest statistics from Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention revealed the continent's caseload has increased to 5,288,323, with 139,226 fatalities. South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Ethiopia account for 62 per cent of all cases reported in the continent as three major variants drive the uptick.
Moeti said that the Covid-19 cases have been on an upward trajectory in Africa in the last five weeks since the onset of the third wave on May 3 adding that a 21 per cent increase could delay flattening the curve. She said the pandemic was on resurgence in 12 countries citing unrestricted social interactions and the presence of mutated versions for powering the virus's spread.
Israel is once again requiring people to wear masks in indoor public spaces amid a Coronavirus outbreak driven by the arrival of a new variant. Israel rolled out one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, inoculating some 85 per cent of its adult population. In recent months, nearly all restrictions were lifted. But there has been a spike in recent days after weeks in which the number of new daily cases was in the single or low double digits.
Britain's health minister apologised on Friday for breaching national restrictions after a newspaper ran pictures of him embracing a woman with whom he allegedly had an affair. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has led the country's response to the Coronavirus pandemic, is the latest in a string of government officials to be accused of breaching restrictions imposed on the rest of the population to curb the spread of the Coronavirus. The tabloid Sun newspaper ran images appearing to show Hancock and a senior aide embracing in an office at the Department of Health.
Australian experts have accused the federal government of a narrow-minded approach to the country's Coronavirus vaccine strategy. Former secretary of the Department of Health Stephen Duckett said on Friday that Australia's troubled vaccine rollout was doomed from the start after the government limited itself to a narrow range of candidate vaccines, reports Xinhua news agency.
4,37,764
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours
180,101,870
Total no. of cases worldwide
39,02,501
Total no. of deaths worldwide
Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins
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