Niger and Chad became the latest countries in Africa each reporting one confirmed COVID-19 patients, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
“…The best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst. Africa should wakeup. My continent should wakeup,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom, WHO Director General. Reports show that compared to other parts of the world, Africa has small number of COVID-19 patients. As of 19 March 34 countries in Africa have reported over 600 COVID-19 confirmed cases with over a dozen deaths.
Meanwhile after a certain pick point, the pandemic accelerates its speed of spread as seen in Europe mainly Italy, Spain and England. Globally COVID-19 pandemic has reached 176 countries, areas or territories with cases infecting some 234,073 people with over 11,000 deaths so far. Italy leads registering over 4,000 deaths, followed by China, the country where the pandemic was first reported. Iran has also lost 1,500 lives by the virus, while the pandemic claims over 1,200 lives in Spain.
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans.