The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted with great concern the rising covid-19 cases in Africa.

It says the continent is experiencing the effect of this in “the brutal cost of lives”, adding that hospitals in the continent are at a breaking point.

This is contained in a statement issued by the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti on July 15.

Data released by the WHO shows that the continent has recorded 1 million cases in the past month.

Dr Moeti says this is the shortest time it’s taken so far for a million cases to be added. When compared to previous periods, it for instance took around three months for the case count to move from 4 million to 5 million.

The current rise she added is, therefore, the fastest the continent has seen, with confirmed cases since the outbreak currently standing at 6.1 million.

12 countries are named by the Health Organization as witnessing a consistent upward trend. They include Algeria, Malawi, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

“The pace of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is stagnating at around three million doses a week. So far 53 million doses have been administered and 18 million Africans are fully vaccinated. This needs to urgently increase and we are counting on dose sharing arrangements to protect more people from falling severely ill or dying due to COVID-19. We expect the imminent delivery of doses from the United States and some countries in Europe through COVAX, and for COVAX supplies to start gathering speed in the latter part of this 3rd quarter.

Countries such as Ethiopia, South Africa and Eswatini are also dealing with crises that are limiting capacities to implement response interventions, with the risk of undetected transmission of COVID-19. We encourage everyone to adhere to preventive measures of masking, hand hygiene and physical distancing, to stop the spread of this virus.”

Dr. Moeti said.

Ghana’s current active cases stand at 2,512 with 806 deaths recorded since the outbreak.