Outbreak Brief 44: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Outbreak Update: Since the last brief (10 November 2020), 4,036,590 new confirmed1 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 62,479 new deaths have been reported globally. To date, a total of 54,312,364 COVID-19 cases and 1,317,284 related deaths (case fatality rate (CFR): 2.4%) have been reported from 221 countries and territories. This week, one new territory (Vanuatu) reported its first case. The distribution of cumulative cases (proportion of global cases) from the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting regions (excluding Africa) are as follows: Eastern Mediterranean Region 2,995,871 (6%), European Region 15,266,390 (28%), Region of the Americas 23,190,772 (43%), South-East Asia Region 10,057,114 (19%) and Western Pacific Region 803,529 (2%). Among the affected locations, over the last seven days the United States has reported more than one million new cases, while India and France have reported over 200,000 new cases each. For more detailed information on cases and deaths being reported outside of Africa, refer to the WHO daily situation reports.2
As of 9 am East African Time (EAT) 17 November 2020, a total of 1,986,864 COVID-19 cases and 47,647 deaths (CFR: 2.4%) have been reported in 55 African Union (AU) Member States. This is 4% of all cases reported globally. The majority (75%) of Member States continue to report community transmission. Of the countries actively reporting COVID-19 epidemiologic data, fifteen countries are reporting case fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of 2.4%, these include Sudan (7.6%), Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (7.1%), Chad (6.3%), Egypt (5.8), Liberia (5.4%), Niger (5.3%), Mali (3.6%), Gambia (3.3%), Algeria (3.1%), Sierra Leone (3.1%), Malawi (3.1%), Zimbabwe (2.9%), Tunisia (2.9%), Democratic Republic of Congo (2.7%), South Africa (2.7%), Burkina Faso (2.6%) and Somalia (2.5%).
For Epi week 46 (9 November – 15 November), 94,831 new COVID-19 cases have been reported, which is an 8% increase in the number of new cases reported compared to Epi week 45. The majority of new COVID-19 cases being reported for this week are from the Northern region (64%) followed by the Southern (18%), Eastern (14%), Western (3%) and Central (1%) regions. Countries reporting the highest incidence (COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population) this week include Morocco (99), Tunisia (84), Libya (80), Cabo Verde (76) and South Africa (24).