ADDIS ABABA, Aug 2 (NNN-ENA) – Ethiopia’s confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 17,530, after 915 new COVID-19 positive cases were confirmed on Friday, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health said.
This is so far the highest daily increase in the Horn of Africa country.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Health, in a statement issued on Friday, revealed that from a total of 8,957 medical tests that were conducted within the last 24 hours, some 915 of them tested positive for COVID-19, eventually bringing the total number of positive cases to 17,530.
Eleven more patients succumbed to illnesses related to the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the East African country to 274, according to the ministry.
The ministry further said, 6,950 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had so far recovered, including 187 in the last 24 hours.
According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, a total of 10,304 COVID-19 patients are still undergoing medical treatment, out of which 138 are in severe condition.
Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation with about 107 million people, confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on Mar 13.
The East African country had so far conducted some 422,354 COVID-19 medical tests, according to the ministry.
Amid the rapid spread of the virus, the government, as well as, healthcare experts and analysts attribute the recent spike of COVID-19 pandemic to the unrest that affected the East African country earlier this month.
Deadly protests erupted in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, which is the hotbed of COVID-19 infection in Ethiopia, as well as, some cities and towns in Ethiopia’s largest Oromia Regional State, during the first two weeks of July, as protesters went violent, following a public outrage attributed to the killing of a popular Oromo singer, Hachalu Hundessa, who was killed on June 29, in Addis Ababa.
Government health officials had been warning the protesters to take maximum anti-COVID-19 protections, such as face masks.
However, some protesters in the capital and in almost all the unrest-hit parts of the country were reported to be without face masks, as well as, without the recommended social distancing measures.– NNN-ENA
