World Health organization or WHO said Africa is witnessing a rapid rise in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, with a 25% daily increase over the past five days.
It said in a statement on Thursday that 39 countries reported 216 cases in the past 24 hours; this is significant increase from a month ago.
Since the start of the outbreak, 39 countries have reported more than 1 800 cases of COVID-19, and there have been 31 deaths.
WHO urged African countries to implement critical actions in the next two weeks while there is still time to prevent the outbreak in the region from overwhelming health services.
‘It is most important that countries still work very hard on containing the spread of COVID-19, while preparing for a broader expansion of the virus’, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Director for Africa.
‘Every arm of every government must work together to stop this virus from wreaking havoc in Africa. Countries must use this two-week window of opportunity to scale-up their actions before it is too late’, he added.
Hand washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of corona virus worldwide.