Ethiopia on Monday reported an additional 17 deaths due to coronavirus infections bringing the total death toll from the pandemic to over 1000.
Minister of Health Dr. Lia Tadesse said the country has conducted a total of 1, 138, 012 laboratory tests against COVID-19 and reported a total of 64, 301 confirmed cases and 1013 deaths.
The horn African nation reported 413 new COVID19 cases out of 7, 162 laboratory tests it conducted the same day.
The rolling average of the positive test rate is now approximately 0.5 percent, according to the Ethiopian Public Health Institute.
460 patients were discharged over the past 24 hours bringing the total number of recoveries to 24, 983.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed inaugurated the country’s first COVID-19 testing kits production and commercial factory for both local and export markets with a priority to African countries.
According to the Prime Minister, the factory will also provide commercial laboratory services for a total of three million transit passengers at Bole International Airport and in Addis Ababa city.
After the end of COVID-19 pandemic, the manufacturing centre will switch to the production of other types of nucleic acid detection reagents, such as AIDS testing kits, tuberculosis nucleic acid test kits and other locally needed RT PCR test kit products, the Prime Minister added.
MG/abj/APA