COVID-19: Ministry of Health Confirms 249 New Cases, 7 Deaths

ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia has reported 249 more Coronavirus (Covid-19) infections on Thursday, taking the nationwide confirmed tally to 272, 285.

In its daily Covid-19 report, Ministry of Health said nearly 4, 400 medical tested have been conducted in the past 24-hours to find the new cases.

Seven more people have also lost their lives due to the virus in the same period, according to the report which puts the national death toll at 4, 185.

Nationwide, the number of severe cases has continued to drop as its tally decreases by 10 as compared to Wednesday

Currently, there are 367 seriously ill Covid-19 patients who receiving medical attentions in hospitals, health officials report.

The report also shows daily recovery tally has continued to outpace the rate of new cases.

In the past 24-hours, at least 936 people have recovered from the respiratory disease caused by coronavirus, pushing the recovery count in Ethiopia to 243, 378.

This has helped to reduce the active cases in Ethiopia below 25, 000 mark for the first time in months. Today’s report put country’s Covid-19 caseload at 24,720.

Africa’s second-most populous country has so far reported the largest number of cases in the East African region after testing nearly 2.84mln people.

Meanwhile, health officials have continued to administer Covid-19 vaccines on Thursday as part of their measures to control the pandemic.

Nearly, 15, 000 people have received Covid-19 vaccine as part of their immunization campaign which started in Mid-March, this year, according to the report.

To date, 1.85 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Ethiopia where officials said most of the vaccines offered are AstraZeneca.

The East African nation received its first batch of 2.2 million doses of this vaccine from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility in March, 2021.