Ethiopia is one of East / Horn of Africa’s least impacted nations as compared to rate of COVID-19 case growth and infection of its neighbours.

A state of emergency lasting five-months has been imposed by the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed led government. All land borders have since been shut as a virus control measure with a raft of restrictions and enforcement of physical distancing and mask wearing measures.

Elections planned for May this year were also postponed citing the effect of the pandemic. Ethiopia played an instrumental role in the deployment of virus supplies donated by Chinese businessman Ali Baba. This article will focus on major developments coming from the country.

Ethiopia has recorded back-to-back one-day spikes, record 61 new cases on Saturday and a further 81 on Sunday toppling the Saturday record.

Of the new 88; Addis Ababa recorded 73 cases. The remaining 15 are from regional states: 8 from Tigray; 4 from Oromia; 1 from Harari; and 2 truck drivers.

Ethiopia’s tally has therefore jumped by 193 new cases in a space of five days. The tallies have consistently been on the rise, triggering calls for more robust government measures to halt spread of the virus.

Total confirmed cases = 582 (new cases = 88) Total recoveries = 152 (new recoveries = 8) Total deaths = 5 Active cases = 423

The trajectory of infections between May 20 – 24

May 20: 389 (24 new cases) May 21: 398 (9 new cases) May 22: 399 (10 new cases) May 22: 433 (34 new cases) May 23: 494 (61 new cases) May 24: 582 (88 new cases)

May 19: 365 cases with 60 new cases in three days Total confirmed cases = 365 (new cases between May 17 – 19 = 60) Total recoveries = 120 (new recoveries = 8) Total deaths = 5 Active cases = 238

Ethiopia’s case count spiked on Monday by 35 new cases (a daily record) whiles 14 new cases were recorded today. Added to 11 cases recorded last Sunday, 60 cases have been recorded in the last three days. The tally now stands at 365.

Concerns had been raised by analysts over the spate of new case increases after it took just a week to go from 200 to go past the 300 mark as against a much lengthier period from 0 to 100 and 100 to 200.

The country, however, remains one of the least impacted in a region where neighbours Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan has crossed the 1000 mark. Kenya is past 900 confirmed cases as of today.

Major African stats: May 19 at 6:00 GMT: Confirmed cases = 88,264 Number of deaths = 2,832 Recoveries = 33,898 Active cases = 51,534