Outbreak Brief 61: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Outbreak Update: Since the last brief (9 March 2021), 3,083,440 new confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 60,154 new deaths have been reported globally. To date, a total of 119,612,568 COVID-19 cases and 2,650,049 related deaths (case fatality rate (CFR): 2.2%) have been reported from 225 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 5,784,179 (5%), European Region 41,185,704 (34%), Region of the Americas 52,929,629 (44%), South-East Asia Region 13,917,115 (12%) and Western Pacific Region 1,720,559 (1%). Over the last seven days, Brazil, the United States, France, Italy, India and Poland have each reported more than 100k 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) 16 March 2021, a total of 4,042,736 COVID-19 cases and 108,087 deaths (CFR: 2.7%) have been reported in 55 African Union (AU) Member States. This is 3.5% of all cases reported globally. Figure 1 shows the trend of new COVID-19 cases reported by day from 15 February 2021 to 16 March 2021.

The curve continues to trend downward to the level reported in October 2020. The majority (91%) of Member States continue to report community transmission. Of the countries actively reporting COVID-19 epidemiologic data, 21 are reporting case fatality rates higher than the global case fatality rate of 2.2%: Sahrawi Republic (16.7%), Sudan (6.3%), Egypt (5.9%), Liberia (4.2%), Mali (4.1%), Somalia (4.1%), Zimbabwe (4.1%), Comoros (4.0%), Eswatini (3.8%), Niger (3.7%), Chad (3.6%), Tunisia (3.5%), South Africa (3.4%), Malawi (3.3%), Gambia (3.0%), Lesotho (2.9%), DR Congo (2.6%), Algeria (2.6%), Senegal (2.6%), Mauritania (2.5%), and Angola (2.4%).