Prognosis
Covid Deaths in Africa May Fall 94% in 2022, WHO Model Shows
- The continent has prior protection from earlier infections
- Africa is world’s least vaccinated continent, Africa CDC Says
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The number of deaths from the coronavirus in Africa may fall 94% to 22,563 this year if current variants and transmission rates remain the same, according to a World Health Organization model.
The fall in deaths, from an estimated 350,000 in 2021, comes even though as many as 73% of people will be infected. This reflects the less lethal nature of the omicron variant in relation to the delta strain and the protection people have from prior infections and vaccination, the WHO said in a statement on Thursday. The modeling exercise used data from the 47 nations included under WHO’s Africa region.