Natalie Cowling
Research Expert South Africa
Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Southern Africa - statistics & facts
Over two years after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic started, the world is still fighting the various strains of the virus. As of early May 2023, over 687 million people globally had contracted the virus, with around 6.87 million of them losing their lives to it. The African continent registered only around two percent of the global infections, with roughly 12.69 million individuals testing positive for the virus. South Africa was the country most affected on the continent.
Most cases and deaths in South Africa
In the Southern African region, the overall number of individuals infected with COVID-19 was close to 4.21 million by March 2022. Of those, South Africa recorded roughly 3.68 million cases, while Botswana and Namibia registered around 264 thousand and 157.3 thousand cases, respectively. In the same period, South Africa also accounted for most of the deaths in the region. Despite Botswana recording more infections than Namibia, the number of deaths was higher in Namibia at roughly four thousand, while 2.62 thousand people lost their lives to the pandemic in Botswana.Strong economic impact
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, projections showed that Southern Africa lost one million full-time jobs in the fourth quarter of 2020. This was lower than the two previous quarters. Moreover, all the countries in the region were projected to see their economies recover in 2021 and 2022 after a rough 2020. According to estimates, in 2020, Botswana had a negative real GDP growth of 8.9 percent due to the pandemic. However, the economy was projected to recover in 2021 and 2022 with real GDP growth rates of 7.5 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively.Efforts to accelerate vaccination campaigns
To minimize the effect of the pandemic, governments rolled out vaccination campaigns in an attempt to stop future potential waves. The ability to provide vaccines varied widely across the countries depending on vaccine supply and procurement. In Southern Africa, Botswana had the highest vaccination rate, followed by South Africa. Botswana administered a total of 1.44 million vaccine doses, while South Africa provided roughly 32 million doses as of early March 2022. On the other hand, Lesotho had a much slower vaccination campaign. In the same period, the country had given a total of 926.8 thousand doses.
