Namibia, a sparsely populated African country, has recently reported a rebound in the number of COVID-19 infection cases, putting its medical system struggling under the heavier burden.
The country with around 2 million people has registered 53 903 confirmed cases by Thursday, according to the data from the country’s Ministry of Health and Social Services.
Namibia detected 300 positive cases from 2 131 test samples in the past 24 hours, meaning the positive rate has reached 14%.
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients is surging, posing a challenge to Namibia’s limited isolation hospital beds and isolation intensive care units (ICU).
“We are experiencing a higher number of hospitalizations. In other words, patients who have contracted COVID-19, need to be hospitalized and they need to be put on oxygen. So the oxygen supply has become a bit of a challenge,” said the Minister.
The country has spotted the transmission of several mutated coronavirus variants from multiple sources, said the Minister.
Despite all the timely preparation and response, the Namibian government made to curb the pandemic, the known effective way to stop the virus transmission remains vaccination.
Shangula denounced some media for their irresponsible spread of false information about COVID-19 vaccines that hinders the country’s vaccination scheme.
Over 4.7 million confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent – with more than 4.3 million recoveries & 129,000 deaths cumulatively.
View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/FKav40kzOD pic.twitter.com/h7ushiQp4k
— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) May 27, 2021
