She said the WHO's research and modelling showed that the pandemic was likely to peak in African countries within four weeks of the population entering a stage of wide-spread Covid-19 community transmission, Matshidiso Moeti said.

"This would overwhelm health systems, leading to more than three million Covid-19 hospitalisations of which about 100,000 would require oxygen support, and more than 50,000 would require support to breathe," she told a media briefing.

Moeti said the risks were amplified in geographically small countries, as well as larger countries where "people are able to move around easily, with Algeria and South Africa falling into the latter category". 

She added that fortunately, many countries had moved to implement containment measures.

South Africa has the highest country-rate of infections, with more than 7,800 cases, six weeks into a nationwide lockdown implemented in an attempt to curb the rate at which infection is spreading.

The WHO expects roughly a third of African nations to reach the peak stages of the pandemic within the coming months.

Moeti said the organisation was synthesising research and various prediction models to give African countries the best advice.

To date, the continent has recorded 51,000 cases of Covid-19 infection and 2,000 fatalities.

She stressed the need for even communities that have not seen any cases yet, to prepare to be affected by the virus and to test for infections, isolate patients and track and trace their contacts.

In the meanwhile, the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday said it would next week issue guidelines to countries on the continent on gradually easing existing Covid-19 lockdown measures, with the provision that each nation needed to adapt these to their circumstances.

The director of the centre, John Nkengasong, told a briefing: "We cannot continue to lock down our economies forever."

But he cautioned that every nation must "customise" the advice given by the centre according to the extent to which Covid-19 was impacting on its population, and balance economic and health care prerogatives.

African News Agency