The African Union Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) announced Wednesday that the number of covid-19 infections in Africa rose 88% to 98,000 new cases during the past week.

Of the total cases, for the week of November 29 to December 5, 79% originated in southern Africa, according to the institution's Director, John Nkengasong, who was speaking at a press conference.

Mozambique, according to the source, is part of 11 African countries where there are records of new infections with the Omicron variant.

In addition to South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria and Ghana, over the past week cases of this variant have been reported in Uganda, Zambia, Tunisia, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

"In total, the continent recorded 8.7 million cases, of which 224,000 deaths are to be mourned," and the fatality rate "remains at 2.5%, although there are countries with more than 5%, such as Egypt, Somalia, and Sudan."

Also during the past week, the African continent recorded 1,076 new deaths, up 14% from the 943 deaths noted during the previous week.

Nkengasong concluded that "looking at the trend over the past four weeks, there is a 44% increase in the number of infections and an 1% increase in the number of deaths."