It’s the end of another (eventful) month in the fight against COVID-19. Number of infections continue to grow. Globally confirmed cases are at 5,934,936 and confirmed deaths are 367,166. We closed out this week in Africa, with 140 741 confirmed cases and 4,059 deaths.

African countries continued to ease restrictions this week and the Africa CDC guidelines on easing restrictions are available here.

Let’s take a deeper look at the data on the continent per region.

Northern Africa continues to be inundated with new cases as the tally rises to 42,185 confirmed cases and 1,837 deaths. Egypt (23,449 confirmed cases and 913 deaths) is the worst affected country region which is interesting as it was the first African country to be affected.

Southern Africa has seen a terrible increase in cases with 33,148 confirmed cases and 667 deaths making it the third worst affected region in Africa after Northern and Western Africa. Despite having a low number of cases, Zimbabwe (174 confirmed cases, 4 deaths) saw cases increase by over 100% this past week. Countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Botswana are seeing an increase in the number of cases and a fair percentage of these new infections are being attributed to cross border travel and returning residents.

Eastern Africa has a total of 16,355 confirmed cases and 478 deaths and this accounts for 12% of the continent’s cases and deaths. Sudan (4,800 confirmed cases, 262 deaths) and Djibouti (3,194 confirmed cases and 22 deaths) are the most affected countries whereas the Seychelles (11 confirmed cases and 0 deaths) and Eritrea (39 confirmed cases and 0 deaths) are keeping their numbers low.

Western Africa is currently the second most affected region on the continent with 34,216 confirmed cases and 701 deaths. Nigeria alone account for 29% of the region’s cases and 40% of the region’s deaths.

Central Africa continues to keep infections at bay as they currently have the least number of cases on the continent at 14,837 confirmed cases and 376 deaths. Although cases have risen substantially in the last week with an increase of 3,338 cases the deaths have stayed relatively low, only increasing by 44 deaths in the last week.