Outbreak Brief 48: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Outbreak Update: Since the last brief (8 December 2020), 4,611,213 new confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 75,990 new deaths have been reported globally. To date, a total of 71,062,725 COVID-19 cases and 1,608,963 related deaths (case fatality rate (CFR): 2.3%) have been reported from 221 countries and territories. This week, no new country or territory 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 3,760,027 (5%), European Region 22,116,845 (31%), Region of the Americas 30,416,759 (43%), South-East Asia Region 11,398,927 (16%) and Western Pacific Region 966,296 (1%). Among the affected locations, the United States has reported more than one million new cases each week for the last five consecutive weeks. For the last seven days, Brazil, India and Turkey 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.
As of 9 am East African Time (EAT) 15 December 2020, a total of 2,389,975 COVID-19 cases and 56,647 deaths (CFR: 2.4%) have been reported in 55 African Union (AU) Member States. This is 3.4% of all cases reported globally. The majority (84%) of Member States continue to report community transmission. Of the countries actively reporting COVID-19 epidemiologic data, sixteen countries are reporting case fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of 2.3%. These include Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (7.1%), Sudan (6.3%), Chad (5.8%), Egypt (5.7%), Liberia (5%), Niger (3.5%), Tunisia (3.5%), Mali (3.4%), Gambia (3.3%), Malawi (3.1%), Sierra Leone (3.1%), Algeria (2.8%), South Africa (2.7%), Zimbabwe (2.7%), Somalia (2.6%) and Democratic Republic of Congo (2.5%).