Addis Ababa, Jul 23 (IANS): The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases across the African continent reached 768,978 on Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC, specialized healthcare agency of the African Union (AU) Commission, in its latest situation update issued on Thursday, said that the number of deaths related to the pandemic rose to 16,423 as of Thursday, Xinhua reported.

The continental disease control and prevention agency also stressed that some 434,973 patients who tested positive for Covid-19 have recovered across the continent so far.

South Africa is Africa's most affected country, followed by Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and Morocco, it was noted.

The Southern Africa region is the most affected area in terms of confirmed cases, followed by Northern Africa and Western Africa, Africa CDC said.

The Africa CDC had earlier this week said that some 40 African countries are still under "full border closure" while night-time curfew has been activated across around 34 countries in an effort to halt the spread of the infectious virus.

In the past one week, the Africa CDC has recorded a total of 123,000 new Covid-19 cases across the continent, an average of 17,000 new infections daily.