Outbreak Brief 51: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Outbreak Update: Since the last brief (29 December 2020), 4,170,052 new confirmed1 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 78,334 new deaths have been reported globally. To date, a total of 83,863,729 COVID-19 cases and 1,840,400 related deaths (case fatality rate (CFR): 2.2%) have been reported from 221 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 4,136,040 (5%), European Region 27,059,537 (32%), Region of the Americas 36,602,670 (44%), South-East Asia Region 12,077,882 (14%) and Western Pacific Region 1,120,182 (1%). Among the affected locations, the United States has reported more than one million new cases each week for the last eight consecutive weeks. For the last seven days, the United Kingdom (UK) and Brazil reported over 200,000 new cases. 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) 5 January 2021, a total of 2,852,491 COVID-19 cases and 67,943 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, nineteen countries are reporting case fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of 2.2%. These include Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (8.8%), Sudan (6.3%), Egypt (5.5%), Chad (4.7%), Liberia (4.6%), Mali (3.8%), Tunisia (3.4%), Democratic Republic of Congo (3.3%), Gambia
(3.3%), Niger (3.2%), Sierra Leone (2.8%), Malawi (2.8%), Algeria (2.8%), Somalia (2.8%), South Africa (2.7%), Zimbabwe (2.4%), Mauritania (2.4%), Eswatini (2.4%) and Angola (2.3%).