As Africa’s confirmed coronavirus cases near 1 million, the director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that “we cannot at all exercise fatigue” in the pandemic response.

A doctor attends to a patient confirmed to have coronavirus, at the Fann University hospital in Dakar, Senegal Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020. (File photo: AP)

John Nkengasong spoke to reporters as the continent’s cases are now at more than 992,000. More than half are in South Africa.

Africa has seen an 11% increase in cases in the past week, lower than in recent weeks, but Nkengasong says that while it’s tempting to see a decrease, the numbers must be observed over several weeks to determine the real trend of infections on the continent of 1.3 billion people.

Five countries account for 75% of cases: South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana and Algeria.

The low rate of testing remains a concern, but Nkengasong says that if countries do the right things “we have a good chance of beating back this pandemic.” He says the CDC is closely watching countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan as cases climb.