Matshidiso Moeti

Cape Verde has become the third African nation to be declared malaria free, even as the disease continues to kill hundreds of thousands of people on the continent, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The Atlantic archipelago of about 500,000 inhabitants follows Mauritius in 1973 and Algeria in 2019.

Africa is facing an explosion of preventable diseases due to delays in vaccinating children, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on April 28, with measles cases jumping 400 percent.

Twenty African countries reported measles outbreaks in the first quarter of this year, eight more than in the first three months of 2021.

The World Health Organization warned Monday the new COVID-19 Omicron variant poses a "very high" risk globally, despite uncertainties about the danger and contagion levels of the new strain.

The Delta variant of coronavirus is driving the pandemic forward in Africa at record speeds, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on July 1. 

Infection numbers have increased in Africa for six weeks running, rising by a quarter week-on-week to almost 202,000 in the week that ended Sunday, it said.

Highly contagious coronavirus variants are fuelling a surge in infections in Africa, the World Health Organization warned on June 17, while in Europe more governments eased their pandemic restrictions.