By Winnie Kamau
Africa is currently grappling with the rising number of reported cases of COVID19 with only seven out of the 54 countries have no reported cases in the continent.
Sierra Leone is the newest country to report its patient Zero today followed by Botswana yesterday which announced its first 3 cases.
African countries still on the negative are Western Sahara, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe, and South Sudan.
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio announced the country’s first COVID19 case today who is a 37-year-old man who is said to have traveled from France on March 16 and has been in isolation since then.
In his televised address President Maada noted ” When I did my first coronavirus press conference, I said that it was not a matter of if, but when. Well, when has come”.
Yesterday Botswana recorded its first 3 cases of coronavirus, the Minister of Health Lemogang Kwape announced on State Tv.
“The three people who had tested positive for the virus currently are in quarantine and had recently traveled to Britain and Thailand,” said Kwape.
According to Data from Africa CDC shows 48 countries have reported cases with 5,255 positive cases 172 deaths and 371 recoveries.
Globally the COVID19 pandemic has hit 704,625 confirmed positive cases, 33,093 deaths reported.
The US has reported cases that have tipped of at 139,288 confirmed cases and 2419 deaths.
Italy which is said to be the epicenter of Europe has had 4,050 new cases reported with 812 deaths reported as of 30th March. The whole country with a population of 60.48 Million has reported a total of 101,739 positive cases with 11,591 deaths.
