The World Health Organisation says ovr 41,000 health workers have been infected with COVID-19.
In a statement to mark this year’s World Patient Safety Day, WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti said the number accounted for 3.8% of all reported cases.
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She said countries like Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire had made progress in reducing the proportion of health worker infections, and that others such as Eritrea, Rwanda and Seychelles had not recorded a single case of COVID-19 among health workers.
She said: “Front-line health workers are at greater risk of infection because of the care they provide to patients.”
Moeti said WHO had trained more than 50, 000 health workers in the African Region in infection prevention and control, with plans to train over 200 000 more.