JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI/DAKAR
Africa is seeing an uptick in
COVID-19 infections, largely driven by a doubling in cases reported in South
Africa, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, urging people across
the continent to continue to get vaccinated.Narok, Kenya
Africa had been experiencing a
lull in COVID cases, with the WHO earlier this month pointing to the
longest-running decline in weekly infections on the continent since the start
of the pandemic.
But last week cases started to
pick up in South Africa -- the country that has recorded the most infections
and deaths in Africa to date -- and health authorities there are monitoring for
signs of a fifth infection wave.
"This week new COVID-19
cases and deaths on the continent increased for the first time after a decline
of more than two months for cases and one month for deaths," Benido
Impouma, director for communicable and non-communicable diseases at the WHO's
Africa office, told an online news conference.
Impouma said there was no
evidence as yet to suggest the rise in cases was linked to any new sub-lineages
or a new coronavirus variant.
Helen Rees, executive director
of the University of the Witwatersrand's Reproductive Health and HIV Institute
in Johannesburg, told the same news conference that an increasing share of
South Africa's COVID cases were the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of the Omicron
variant.
But she said the country had
so far not seen a huge increase in mortality or intensive care admissions.
Separately, the WHO also said
on Thursday that Africa was witnessing a surge in outbreaks of
vaccine-preventable diseases including measles, polio and yellow fever.
"The rise in outbreaks of
other vaccine-preventable diseases is a warning sign. As Africa works hard to
defeat COVID-19, we must not forget other health threats," WHO Africa
director Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.
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