South Africa has breached the 200,000 coronavirus cases mark, leapfrogging Germany to become the 15th country hardest hit by the disease that has grounded the world over the past few months.
According to latest Ministry of Health statistics on Tuesday, South Africa had as of Tuesday afternoon recorded 205,721 coronavirus cases, with 3,310 of them succumbing to the disease.
This accounted for nearly 42 percent of the total number of cases in Africa, which stood at 492,805 cases by midday Tuesday.
The country tops the number of recorded infections across the African continent, ahead of Egypt and Nigeria. Egypt had 76,222 cases while Nigeria has 29,286 cases as of Tuesday.
South Africa now ranks 15th highest in the world, with the number of cases doubling in the past two weeks alone, according to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.
At the top of the global list of worst-affected countries is the United States, with over three million cases, followed by Brazil which had more than 1.6 million cases as of Tuesday.
Other countries with higher COVID-19 cases than South Africa are India, Russia, Peru, Spain, Chile, United Kingdom, Mexico, Iran, Italy, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
JN/APA