A schoolboy wears a face mask as he arrives at the Olympic Primary School during the partial reopening of schools in Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya on Oct 12, 2020. (Photo: Agencies)

With most African countries battling a second wave of coronavirus infections, health authorities have urged governments to engage more closely with communities in an effort to control the spread.

"In fighting the second wave of the pandemic, there will be balancing of the need to save the economy and to save lives, to an extent that we have to count on the cooperation of the community as well as empowering them," said John Nkengasong, the director of the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, or Africa CDC.

Nkengasong, speaking at a virtual briefing on Thursday, called on governments across the continent to do more to increase community awareness of the need for social distancing and the use of face masks.

Governments should ensure that people wear masks consistently and keep up hygiene measures, especially as they travel in rural areas for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Nkengasong warned that failure to do so would lead to a steep increase in the number of new cases in January. He said the number of new cases has increased steadily and that February is likely to mark the peak of the pandemic in Africa.

"We should prepare for the second wave using the tools that we used in the first wave, but also hoping that we can get rapid access to vaccines so that we can use a combination of health measures and timely massive vaccination to bring the infection curve down," he said.

Rising numbers

Nkengasong said that for the week to Dec 6, the continent recorded 100,269 new cases and 2,181 new deaths. The figures, which are the latest reported for a seven-day period, translate to a 7.8 percent rise in cases and 7.8 percent rise in deaths compared with the previous week.

As of Sunday, Africa had more than 2.3 million confirmed cases, with more than 55,900 people dying of COVID-19, according to Africa CDC.

Over the past four weeks, Nkengasong said there has been a 3.5 percent rise in the average number of new cases reported. The Central African region led with an increase of 28 percent, followed by Southern Africa with 19 percent. In contrast, the Northern region had a 3 percent decrease in the number of new cases over the four weeks.

As of Sunday, according to the Africa CDC, five countries have surpassed 100,000 coronavirus infections: South Africa with 852,965, Morocco 397,597, Egypt 121,089, Ethiopia 116,297, and Tunisia 110,393.

The World Health Organization on Thursday called on African governments to increase collaboration with communities to enhance the uptake of vaccines once they become available.