Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) says the fall in average daily cases of coronavirus across the continent is a ‘sign of hope’.
The organisation said the continent-wide daily average was 10 300 last week, down from 11 000 the week before.
Africa CDC director Dr John Nkengasong said: ‘We take this news with cautious optimism.’
He said he was hopeful ‘that we are beginning to bend the curve slowly’. But, echoing the sentiments of other health authorities, he cautioned that it was ‘very, very early – we are dealing with a very delicate virus that spreads rapidly’, and there was no room for complacency.
‘We really want our population not to show what we call “prevention fatigue”, where we slow down on the measures that we are putting in place.’
Africa has recorded 1 147,369 cases, more than half of which are in South Africa, and about 26 000 deaths.
Africa CDC said testing had increased steadily in the past few months to more than 10 million, nearly 1% of the continent’s population.
A BBC report noted, however, that the World Health Organisation attributed the overall drop in newly confirmed cases in Africa to the decreasing number of positive cases observed in South Africa in recent days. The report added that lower testing rates in much of the continent meant it might not be possible to get ‘the true picture of the pandemic’.
Some experts warned that there might be many more cases than were recorded in Africa because of the lack of testing.
After South Africa, Egypt has the next highest tally in Africa – in 31st place in the world – with 96 914 cases.
Positive cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 3 880 to a cumulative total of 599 940 (with 497 169 recoveries). Deaths rose by 195 to 12 618.
The highest tally of cases is in Gauteng (202 955), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (108 080), the Western Cape (103 616) and the Eastern Cape (84 586).
In Europe, several countries reported a surge in cases, with several posting their highest figures in months, according to the BBC.
Spain reported 3 715 new infections in its daily count on Wednesday – the highest figure since the country came out of a strict lockdown in late June.
Italy reported 642 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, marking its highest daily jump since late May.
Germany’s daily figures on Thursday showed 1 707 new cases, its highest toll since April.
And, in South Korea, the capital, Seoul, reported 297 cases on Wednesday, the highest daily figure since March.