The total number of people infected by coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has gone up to 35 after six more patients are confirmed positive in the last 24 hours.
The Public Health Institute of Ethiopia said that it has found six new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours after conducting test for 74 people. So far Ethiopia has conducted less than 1,150 COVID-19 tests using its single testing facility at the Public health Institute of Ethiopia. A few days ago, the Ministry of Health stated that two more institutions have got green light to commence testing COVID-19 in Ethiopia. Meanwhile still Ethiopia is conducting less than 100 tests per day.
It is stated that all the six new patients are Ethiopian nationals. Out of the six new COVID-19 positive people, one is from Dire Dawa City while the remaining are from the capital Addis Ababa. Out of the six, two have travel history to Dubai. But they returned to Addis Ababa before the country begins two weeks quarantine a mandatory for all people coming from abroad. So far no death is reported in Ethiopia because of coronavirus. Of the total three have already recovered, while two foreign nationals have returned back to their respective countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been advising countries to quickly expand their testing capacity in order to identify positive cases and isolate and treat patients before health facilities overcrowded by thousands coronavirus patients as witnessed in some of the European countries such as Italy and Spain, among others.
As African countries are likely to expand their testing capacity over the coming weeks and months, the number of COVID-19 positive cases, which is currently in a few thousands is expected to exponentially increase.
Globally over one million people across the world are currently infected by coronavirus pandemic with close to 54,000 deaths. The most hit countries by the virus include, Italy, Spain, France, United Sates and Iran. In the last 24 hours the United States registers over 1,100 deaths because of coronavirus, the largest number in one day in the world since the outbreak. So far over 205,000 people have recovered globally from the pandemic.