African countries need to stay vigilant and weigh the risks before relaxing COVID-19 measures, despite the decreasing infections, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday in a statement.
WHO said that the continent could face with risks of possible resurgence and new variants.
Africa is called for vigilance, as it is experiencing its longest-running decline in infections since the onset of the pandemic, reads the statement released by the WHO regional office for Africa, adding that the weekly cases have fallen for the past 16 weeks, after recording around 18,000 cases and 239 deaths in the week ending on April 10, a decline of 29 percent and 37 percent respectively.
“Despite the decreasing infections, it is crucial that countries remain vigilant and maintain surveillance measures, including genomic surveillance to swiftly detect circulating COVID-19 variants, enhance testing and scale up vaccination,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, noting the possible resurgence of the pandemic and new variants.
“With the virus still circulating, the risk of new and potentially more deadly variants emerging remains, and the pandemic control measures are pivotal to the effective response to a surge in infections,” Moeti said in the statement.
MG/abj/APA