Covid-19 cases rise sharply in Africa and India

SOUTH Africa’s confirmed coronavirus cases have doubled in two weeks to a quarter of a million, while India has seen its biggest daily spike as its total passed 800,000.

Inequality concerns are growing, as health workers seek better protection while some among the wealthy are hoarding equipment at home.

Globally more than 12 million people have been infected by the virus, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. More than half a million have died.

Shortages of testing materials and poor data collection in some countries mean the true numbers are unknown.

Some of the worst-affected nations are among the world’s most unequal.

In Johannesburg at South Africa’s epicentre, badly-needed oxygen concentrators, which help people with Covid-19 breathe, are hard to find as private businesses and individuals are buying them up, according to public health specialist Lynne Wilkinson, who volunteers at a field hospital.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s struggling public hospitals are short on medical oxygen – and they are now seeing a higher proportion of deaths than in private ones, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said. South Africa now has more than 250,000 confirmed cases, including more than 3,800 deaths.

And in Kenya, some have been outraged by a local newspaper report citing sources as saying several governors have installed intensive care unit equipment in their homes.

More than 8,000 health workers across Africa have been infected, half of them in South Africa. The continent of 1.3 billion has the world’s lowest levels of health staffing and more than 550,000 cases, and the pandemic is reaching “full speed,” the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

In India, which reported a new daily high of 27,114 cases on Saturday, nearly a dozen states have imposed a partial lockdown in high-risk areas. A surge in infections saw cases jump from 600,000 to more than 800,000 in nine days. The total is now 820,916. And in

Latin America the pandemic is sweeping through the continent’s leadership, with two more presidents and powerful officials testing positive.