PARIS | The African continent crossed the threshold of one million officially declared cases of the new coronavirus on Thursday, more than half of which were recorded in South Africa, according to an AFP count.
• Read also: All the developments of the pandemic
South Africa is by far the country most affected by the pandemic, with 538,184 cases, and 8,307 additional cases announced Thursday. The country records 9,604 deaths (+306). The number of people cured was 387,316.
Egypt has recorded nearly 95,000 cases and Nigeria nearly 45,000.
In terms of number of contaminations, South Africa is ranked 5th in the world.
Over the past week, the trend is however to decelerate in Africa, with -18% of officially registered cases, according to an AFP count.
The African continent remains one of the least affected, only Oceania recording a lower number of cases.
The number of cases diagnosed, however, only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many African countries with failing health systems have only limited screening capacities.
Globally, nearly 19 million cases have been recorded in total. The pandemic has killed more than 709,000 people.