Covid may kill 1.9L Africans in 1yr: WHO

Geneva, may 8

As many as 1,90,000 people across Africa could die in the first year of the pandemic if crucial containment measures fail, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Friday.

The warning comes as the continent’s most populous nation, Nigeria, with others including South Africa and Ivory Coast, have begun relaxing some of their lockdown measures. The UN body’s estimates were based on prediction modelling, and focus on 47 countries in the WHO African region — Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti, are not included.

Across the whole of the African continent more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths have been recorded by Africa’s Centre for Disease Control. —Agencies