WHO: Africa seeing ‘extremely rapid evolution’ of coronavirus outbreak

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that the coronavirus is quickly spreading throughout Africa, as more countries on the continent closed their borders as a precaution.

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional chief, called the spike in COVID-19 cases in Africa an “extremely rapid evolution,” The Associated Press reports.

According to the AP, 36 of the continent’s 54 countries now have confirmed cases, as of Thursday. Forty-three of the countries having testing capabilities and Moeti noted that by Monday, Africa would have a total of 60,000 testing kits.

Many African countries have taken the same precautions as the rest of the world. Chad and Niger closed their borders on Thursday. Cameroon and Angola closed their air, land and sea borders, while Rwanda reportedly blocked all commercial flights for a month.

South Africa, which has 150 cases of the virus, is building a new fence on its main border with Zimbabwe, in an effort to keep people who are sick with the illness from entering into either country unnoticed.

Globally, over 200,000 people have been infected with COVID-19, resulting in over 9,000 deaths.