Outbreak Brief 42: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Outbreak Update: Since the last brief (27 October 2020), 3,434,225 new confirmed1 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 40,289 new deaths have been reported globally. To date, a total of 46,412,100 COVID-19 cases and 1,193,177 related deaths (case fatality rate (CFR): 2.6%) have been reported from 219 countries and territories. 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 2,641,865 (6%), European Region 11,296,165 (24%), Region of the Americas 20,616,596 (44%), South-East Asia Region 9,305,253 (20%) and Western Pacific Region 738,732 (2%). Among the affected locations, the United States, India, and France have reported over 200,000 new cases in the past seven days. For more detailed information on cases and deaths being reported outside of Africa, refer to the WHO daily situation reports.

As of 9 am East African Time (EAT) 2 November 2020, a total of 1,803,464 COVID-19 cases and 43,389 deaths (CFR: 2.4%) have been reported in 55 African Union (AU) Member States. This is 4% of all cases reported globally. The majority of countries (41, 75%) are still reporting 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 2.6%, these include Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (7.1%), Chad (6.5%), Sudan (6.0%), Egypt (5.8), Liberia (5.7%), Niger (5.6%), Mali (3.8%), Algeria (3.4%), Gambia (3.2%), Sierra Leone (3.1%), Malawi (3.1%), Zimbabwe (2.9%), Democratic Republic of Congo (2.7%), Burkina Faso (2.7%) and South Africa (2.7%).