ADDIS ABABA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent has reached 172 as confirmed positives cases surpassed 5,255 as of Tuesday, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) revealed.
The Africa CDC, specialized agency of the 55-member African Union (AU), in its latest situation update said the cases were spread across 47 African countries.
The continental disease control and prevention agency also disclosed that among the highly COVID-19 affected countries include South Africa with 1,326 confirmed cases, Egypt with 656 confirmed cases and Algeria with 582 confirmed cases.
The northern African nations of Morocco and Tunisian also recorded high number of COVID-19 cases with 556 and 362 confirmed cases respectively.
The Africa CDC also disclosed that some 371 people who have been infected with the COVID-19 have recovered across the continent.
Amid the rapid spread of the virus across the African continent, figures from the Africa CDC also show that more than 384 new confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported across the continent since the center's recent report on Monday.
The African Union, through its specialized healthcare agency Africa CDC, has already activated its Emergency Operations Center and its Incident Management System (IMS) for the COVID-19 outbreak on January 27.
The Africa CDC had also developed its third Incident Action Plan that covers the period from March 16 to April 15.
