The African continent last week surpassed 10.4 million cases of covid-19, resulting in 235,000 deaths.

The director of the African Union's African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) announced today, last week's trend, compared to the previous one, reveals that there are 46 countries in the fourth wave, and already eight in the fifth wave, including Guinea-Bissau, along with Kenya, Somalia, and Tunisia, among others.

"Total cases have reached 10.4 million in the 55 member states of the African Union, unfortunately resulting in 235,000 deaths since the start of the covid-19″ pandemic, John Nkengasong said at the usual weekly press conference broadcast from Addis Ababa, quoted by Lusa.

Continuing, the official said that: "comparing the week from January 10-16 to January 3-9, there were a total of 249,943 new cases, which represents a 20% decrease."

However, Nkengasong, stresses that in terms of the number of deaths, there has been an average increase of 4% in this period, totaling 2,791 new deaths, which compares to 2,688 deaths in the previous week.

The Omicron variant, John Nkengasong said, has already been registered in 40 countries on the continent, he concluded.