The Interview Editors
Nigeria appears to be behind in saving lives COVID-19 patients as the disease’s death rate in the country is currently one of the worst in Africa with 68 deaths.
This figure represents more than double the continent’s average of about 32 deaths.
Ghana, Rwanda, Togo and South Africa are just a few countries that are reporting fewer deaths and better recovery rates from the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa than Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent and the one with the most to lose should outbreak become unmanageable.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise in African countries, 1,698 people have so far lost their lives with more than 14,000 patients recovering from the pandemic.
The number of deaths represents 10.7 per cent of the 15, 797 cases where there has been a definite outcome either by death or recovery.
South Africa which has tested 3,668 for every one million, reported 116 deaths and 2,382 recoveries.
That puts the death rate at 4.6 per cent of the closed 2,498 cases.
The numbers are similar in Ghana where 3,653 tests have been conducted for every one million of the population, 17 deaths recorded and 212 recoveries made.
The percentage of deaths is 7.4 of the 229 closed cases.
Nigeria is however one of the countries where the number of recorded deaths is higher than the African average.
The number of closed cases in Nigeria as at 11pm May 1, 2020 stood at 419 according to data published by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
Of the 419 closed cases, 68 were reported as deaths representing a death rate of 16.2 percent.
NCDC also reported that patients that who recovered from the COVID-19 outbreak to be 351, representing 83.8 of the closed cases.
Nigeria has so far tested only 80 people for every one million of its population.
With the exception of Morocco which has a death rate of 12.2 per cent and has tested 1,032 people for every one million of its population, data on worldometers.info shows that the countries in Africa with the best survival rate of COVID-19 are those with the highest number of tests for every one million of their population.
These include countries like South Africa, Djibouti, Ghana, Uganda, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Guinea Bissau, Mauritius and Togo.
Countries like Uganda and Rwanda have reported zero deaths while Djibouti has only two.
Mauritius is by far the best performing country in terms of the percentage of its population tested, which is 12,603 people for every one million.
It has however reported 312 recoveries, which is close to the 351 reported in Nigeria.
