Covid-19: ECOWAS leaders must meet over regional response

Former President  John Mahama has called for an urgent meeting of the Authority of Heads of State and Governments of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to discuss and take decisions on a sub-regional response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic across the West African Region.

It comes after Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo ordered the lockdown of the country as a measure to curb the spread of the virus. Many African countries have also instituted similar measures in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, Global cases of COVID-19 have jumped to 607,166 from 500, 000 in less than 24 hours with the US now leading the way with 104,256 cases.

According to the latest figures collated by Johns Hopkins University, the US has overtaken China (81,782 cases) and Italy (80,589). 27,674 people have been killed globally with 134,279 people fully recovering from the virus.

The exponential increase in the global cases is staggering since it took 67 days for the infection to hit 100, 000 and 11 days to reach 200, 000. Meanwhile, the city in China where the coronavirus pandemic began, Wuhan, has partially re-opened after more than two months of isolation.