As of November 18, 2022, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa amounted to around 12.7 million, which represented around two percent of the infections around the world. By the same date, coronavirus cases globally were over 640 million, deaths were over six million, while approximately 620 million people recovered from the disease. On the African continent, South Africa was the most drastically affected country, with more than 3.6 million infections.

The African continent fighting the pandemic  

The African continent first came in contact with the coronavirus pandemic on February 14, 2020, in the northernmost part, particularly Egypt. Since then, the different governments took severe restrictive measures to try to curb the spread of the disease. Moreover, the official numbers of the African continent are significantly lower than those of Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. Nevertheless, the infectious disease still managed to have its effects on several countries. South Africa had the highest number of deaths. Morocco and Tunisia, the second and third most affected in Africa, recorded 16,002 and 27,824 deaths, respectively, while Egypt registered at 24,132 as of March 02, 2022.

The light at the end of the tunnel  

Although the African countries still have a long way to fully combat the virus, vaccination programs have been rolled out in the majority of Africa. Also, according to a survey, public opinion in several African countries shows a high willingness to be vaccinated, with Ethiopia having numbers as high as 94 percent. As of March 2022, Egypt was the country administering the highest number of vaccine doses, however, Seychelles had the highest per rate per 100 people .

As of November 18, 2022, the overall deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) in Africa reached 257,984. South Africa recorded the highest number of casualties. With over 100,000 deaths, the country accounted for roughly 40 percent of the total. Tunisia was the second most affected on the continent, as the virus made almost 30,000 victims in the nation, around 11 percent of the overall deaths in Africa. Egypt accounted for around 10 percent of the casualties on the continent, with 24,600 victims. By the same date, Africa had recorded more than 12 million cases of COVID-19.

This dataset provides values for CORONAVIRUS DEATHS reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

Method

The dataset contains several confirmed COVID-19 cases, number of deaths, and death rate in six regions. The objective of the study is to compare the number of confirmed cases in Africa to other regions.

Death rate = Total number of deaths from COVID-19 divided by the Total Number of infected patients.

The study provides evidence for the country-level in six regions by the World Health Organisation's classification.

Findings

Based on the descriptive data provided above, we conclude that the lack of tourism is one of the key reasons why COVID-19 reported cases are low in Africa compared to other regions. We also justified this claim by providing evidence from the economic freedom index, which indicates that the vast majority of African countries recorded a low index for a business environment. On the other hand, we conclude that the death rate is higher in the African region compared to other regions. This points to issues concerning health-care expenditure, low capacity for testing for COVID-19, and poor infrastructure in the region.

Apart from COVID-19, there are significant pre-existing diseases, namely; Malaria, Flu, HIV/AIDS, and Ebola in the continent. This study, therefore, invites the leaders to invest massively in the health-care system, infrastructure, and human capital in order to provide a sustainable environment for today and future generations. Lastly, policy uncertainty has been a major issue in determining a sustainable development goal on the continent. This uncertainty has differentiated Africa to other regions in terms of stepping up in the time of global crisis.

Background: More than 1 year after the beginning of the international spread of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), the reasons explaining its apparently lower reported burden in Africa are still to be fully elucidated. Few studies previously investigated the potential reasons explaining this epidemiological observation using data at the level of a few African countries. However, an updated analysis considering the various epidemiological waves and variables across an array of categories, with a focus on African countries might help to better understand the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent. Thus, we investigated the potential reasons for the persistently lower transmission and mortality rates of COVID-19 in Africa.Methods: Data were collected from publicly available and well-known online sources. The cumulative numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths per 1 million population reported by the African countries up to February 2021 were used to estimate the transmission and mortality rates of COVID-19, respectively. The covariates were collected across several data sources: clinical/diseases data, health system performance, demographic parameters, economic indicators, climatic, pollution, and radiation variables, and use of social media. The collinearities were corrected using variance inflation factor (VIF) and selected variables were fitted to a multiple regression model using the R statistical package.Results: Our model (adjusted R-squared: 0.7) found that the number of COVID-19 tests per 1 million population, GINI index, global health security (GHS) index, and mean body mass index (BMI) were significantly associated (P < 0.05) with COVID-19 cases per 1 million population. No association was found between the median life expectancy, the proportion of the rural population, and Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) coverage rate. On the other hand, diabetes prevalence, number of nurses, and GHS index were found to be significantly associated with COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population (adjusted R-squared of 0.5). Moreover, the median life expectancy and lower respiratory infections rate showed a trend towards significance. No association was found with the BCG coverage or communicable disease burden.Conclusions: Low health system capacity, together with some clinical and socio-economic factors were the predictors of the reported burden of COVID-19 in Africa. Our results emphasize the need for Africa to strengthen its overall health system capacity to efficiently detect and respond to public health crises.

As of March 15, 2023, Seychelles was the African country with the highest coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination rate, with around 205 doses administered per 100 individuals. Mauritius and Rwanda followed with 201 and 190 doses per 100 people, respectively. Ranking fourth, Morocco had a vaccination rate of approximately 148 doses per 100 people, registering the third-highest number of inoculations after Egypt and Nigeria. In South Africa, the most affected country on the continent, the vaccination rate instead reached around 64 per 100 population.

How did Africa obtain the vaccines?

Vaccines in Africa were obtained in different ways. African nations both purchased new doses and received them from other countries. At the beginning of the vaccination campaigns, donations came from all over the world, such as China, the United Arab Emirates, India, and Russia. The United Nations-led COVAX initiative provided Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech doses to several African countries. Within this program, the continent received nearly 270 million doses as of January 2022. Moreover, the vaccination campaign has also been an occasion for intra-African solidarity. Senegal has, for instance, donated vaccines to the Gambia, while in January 2021, Algeria announced that it would have shared its supply with Tunisia.

COVID-19 impact on the African economy

The spread of COVID-19 negatively affected socio-economic growth in Africa, with the continent’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracting significantly in 2020. Specifically, Southern Africa experienced the sharpest decline, at minus six percent, followed by North Africa at minus 1.7 percent. Most of Africa’s key economic sectors were hit by the pandemic. The drop in global oil prices led to a crisis in the oil and gas sector. Nigeria, the continent’s leading oil-exporting country, witnessed a considerable decrease in crude oil trade in 2020. Moreover, the shrinking number of international tourist arrivals determined a loss of over 12 million jobs in Africa’s travel and tourism sector. Society has also been substantially affected by COVID-19 on the poorest continent in the world, and the number of people living in extreme poverty was estimated to increase by around 30 million in 2020.

In past 24 hours, Africa had N/A new cases, N/A deaths and N/A recoveries.

Surgo Ventures' Africa CCVI ranks 756 regions across 48 African countries on their vulnerability—or their ability to mitigate, treat, and delay transmission of the coronavirus. Vulnerability is assessed based on many factors grouped into seven themes: socioeconomic status, population density, access to transportation and housing; epidemiological factors; health system factors; fragility; and age. The index reflects risk factors for COVID-19, both in terms of clinical outcomes and socioeconomic impact.

The Africa CCVI is the only index to measure vulnerability to COVID-19 within most countries in Africa at this level of detail. The index is modular to reflect the reality that vulnerability is a multi-dimensional construct, and two regions could be vulnerable for very different reasons. This allows stakeholders to customize pandemic responses informed by vulnerability on each dimension. For example, policymakers can identify areas for scaling up COVID-19 testing that are more vulnerable on theme two - population density - or direct community health workers or mobile health units to areas that are vulnerable due to weak health systems infrastructure. The modularity of the Africa CCVI can help governments design lean and precise responses for subnational regions during each phase of the pandemic.

Data files:

Africa_CCVI_subnational_zenodo.csv: Africa CCVI and seven themes' scores for 756 administrative level-1 regions across 48 countries

Africa_CCVI_country_zenodo.csv: Africa CCVI and seven themes scores across 36 countries (12 countries excluded as country-specific data sources were used for them)

DHS_raw_indicators_Zenodo.csv: this CSV contains indicator data for 36 countries, data was primarily sourced from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in addition to other sources (listed in accvi-data-sources.xlsx)

non_DHS_raw_indicators_Zenodo.csv: 12 countries that did not have a recent DHS, so we used country-specific surveys, MICS UNICEF, and other sources (listed in accvi-data-sources.xlsx)

accvi-data-sources.xlsx: data sources used for ACCVI indicators

zenodo_data_dictionary.csv: names and definitions of variables used in data files

Analysis of ‘Covid in African Countries - Latest Data’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/anandhuh/covid-in-african-countries-latest-data on 28 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Content

This dataset contains Covid-19 data of African countries as on January 26, 2022

Attribute Information

• Country - Name of African countries
• Total Cases - Total number of Covid-19 cases
• Total Deaths - Total number of Deaths
• Total Recovered - Total number of recovered cases
• Active Cases - Total number of Active cases
• Total Cases/1 mil population- Total Cases per 1 million of the population
• Deaths/1 mil population - Total Deaths per 1 million of the population
• Total Tests - Total number of Covid tests done
• Tests/1 mil population - Covid tests done per 1 million of the population
• Population - Population of the country

Source

Link : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Other Updated Covid19 Datasets

Link : https://www.kaggle.com/anandhuh/datasets

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Thank You

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Daily Update on Covid-19 Cases Reported for Countries in Africa.

This dataset provides values for CORONAVIRUS CASES reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

COVID 19 Data for South Africa created, maintained and hosted by DSFSI research group at the University of Pretoria

Disclaimer: We have worked to keep the data as accurate as possible. We collate the COVID 19 reporting data from NICD and South Africa DoH. We only update that data once there is an official report or statement. For the other data, we work to keep the data as accurate as possible. If you find errors let us know.

See original GitHub repo for detailed information https://github.com/dsfsi/covid19za

The repository collates data on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Africa that includes cases, deaths, and recoveries. The data are obtained from official sources such as the World Health Organization, Departments and Ministries of Health, African CDC, and unofficial sources (news, etc.). The repository contains time series and line lists – a table summarizing information about people who are infected, dead, or recovered. The table for each African country would include demographic, location, and symptom (where available) information for each reported case.

The number of Vaccines received and being administered in different countries. Data from WHO - Africa COVID-19 Dashboard, 2021

Covid-19 infected cases in Africa, per country, per day from the beginning of the pandemic. Source : national governments.

Additional file 4. R code.

Dataset contains COVID-19 information about confirmed cases, deaths, and persons under treatment at country and first administrative levels in Central and West Africa.

The Africa CCVI was created by Surgo Ventures, with support from the UKAID Department for International Development (DFID)’s Frontier Technologies Hub. The index informs COVID-19 planning and response, especially among Africa’s most vulnerable regions—those that will struggle to weather a COVID-19 outbreak and its health, economic and social impacts without support. The index assesses seven kinds of vulnerability for 756 regions in 48 countries. The overall index (CCVI) is made up of seven themes: age; epidemiological factors; fragility; strength of health systems; population density; socioeconomic factors; and access to transportation and housing. For more information, please visit precisionforcovid.org/africa.

IntroductionThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant public health and socioeconomic crises across Africa; however, the prevalent patterns of COVID-19 and the circulating characteristics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants in the continent remain insufficiently documented.MethodsIn this study, national data on case numbers, infection incidences, mortality rates, the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants, and key health indexes were collected from various official and professional sources between January 2020 and December 2023 were analyzed with SaTScan and geographically weighted regression (GWR).ResultsThe prevalent profiles and circulating features of SARS-CoV-2 across the African continent, including its five regions and all African countries, were analyzed. Four major waves of the epidemic were observed. The first wave was closely associated with the introduction of the early SARS-CoV-2 strain while the subsequent waves were linked to the emergence of specific variants, including variants of concern (VOCs) Alpha, Beta, variants of interest (VOIs) Eta (second wave), VOC Delta (third wave), and VOC Omicron (fourth wave). SaTScan analysis identified four large spatiotemporal clusters that affected various countries. A significant number of countries (50 out of 56) reported their first cases during February 2020 and March 2020, predominantly involving individuals with confirmed cross-continental travel histories, mainly from Europe. In total, 12 distinct SARS-CoV-2 VOCs and VOIs were identified, with the most prevalent being VOCs Omicron, Delta, Beta, Alpha, and VOI Eta. Unlike the dominance of VOC Delta during the third wave and Omicron during the fourth wave, VOC Alpha was relatively rare in the Southern regions but more common in the other four regions. At the same time, Beta predominated in the Southern region and Eta in the Western region during the second wave. Additionally, relatively higher COVID-19 case incidences and mortalities were reported in the Southern and Northern African regions. Spearman rank correlation and geographically weighted regression (GWR) analyses of COVID-19 incidences against health indexes in 52 African countries indicate that countries with higher national health expenditures and better personnel indexes tended to report higher case incidences.DiscussionThis study offers a detailed overview of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Strengthening the capacity of health institutions across African countries is essential for the timely detection of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and, consequently, for preparedness against future COVID-19 pandemics and other potentially infectious disease outbreaks.

As of July 4, 2022, Africa had administered around 41 doses of coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines per 100 people. The vaccination rate in the continent was far slower than the world average, measured at 154 vaccines per 100 individuals on the same date. The vaccination in Africa has also been marked by a striking divide between countries. Africa started receiving vaccine supplies under the WHO-backed Covax facility in February 2021. Some African countries purchased additional doses, while others benefited from bilateral donations.