As coronavirus cases have risen across Africa by almost a third in the past week, a leading charity has called for the urgent cancelling of debt repayments from the poorest countries.
Christian Aid said that repayments should be cancelled this year to help countries spend money on saving lives instead.
The charity said that there are now over 16,000 Coronavirus cases in Africa, an increase of 27 per cent over the previous week, with the number of deaths rising by 43 per cent to over 740.
However, they point out that with extremely low testing carried out across Africa so far, the true figure is feared to be even higher, with some warning the continent could see tens of thousands of cases in coming weeks.
Christian Aid added that many African countries lack the specialist equipment or staff to cope with a pandemic. They have published research that shows that in a country like Malawi, there are only seven ventilators for 18 million people.