Africa’s confirmed coronavirus cases reached 27 on Thursday after South Africa confirmed one case.
Earlier on Wednesday Algeria and Senegal recorded new cases, according to health officials in those countries.
In Algeria, an entire family of nine in Algeria tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, according to the country’s health ministry.
With the new cases, Algeria has now recorded 17 confirmed coronavirus cases.
Algeria’s health ministry said the nine new cases were registered in a family living in the northern Blida district, some 30km (20 miles) from the capital, Algiers.
This family last month hosted relations from France who were tested positive for coronavirus after flying back to France.
On Wednesday Senegal’s health ministry also said that two new coronavirus infections had been confirmed.
That brings to four the number of patients with the virus in the country after earlier recording two cases.
Health officials said one of the two new patients is a 33-year-old British woman who arrived in the capital city, Dakar, last month on a flight from London.
The other new confirmed case was a 68-year-old woman, a French resident who also arrived last month.
Her spouse was the the 80-year-old French national who tested positive for the virus this week.
So far Africa has recorded a total of 26 cases of the deadly virus, after a slow rate of outbreak.
Egypt (2), Algeria (17) and Nigeria (1) Tunisia (1) Morocco (1), South Africa (1) and Senegal (4) are the cases so far.
Already the impact of the outbreak is being felt with African Airlines reportedly losing $400m due to suspension and cancellation of flights to and from China since the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Most airlines suspended and even canceled flights to and from China in February when the outbreak became serious.
Airlines like South African Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Air Tanzania, Air Mauritius, EgyptAir, RwandAir and Kenya Airways announced the suspension of flights last month.
Last year the airlines posted losses of $100m and this year’s figure could be higher due to the current outbreak.
Source: Africafeeds.com
