Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo says the nation`s health system is at the brink of collapse. Ghana has announced the discovery of a new variant of the coronavirus at its main airport.

The president said on Sunday, Ghana’s COVID-19 infection rates are now skyrocketing and include new strains of the virus not seen before in the country. He said this is filling treatment centres and threatening to overwhelm the health system.

In a televised address, the president said the new variant was found on arriving passengers who have since been isolated. No details were given on the passengers or from where they came.

The increase in cases is attributed to the disregard for public health protocols during the recent festive season. The police have been instructed to now strictly enforce the protocols.

The government is also scaling up its strategy of tracing, testing, and treating confirmed cases.

Ghana has so far recorded more than 57,000 cases and in excess of 300 deaths since it reported its first case in march last year.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says a second coronavirus wave is infecting twice as many people per day across Africa than at the height of last year’s first wave, and has yet to peak.

Uganda’s electoral commission has declared incumbent president Yoweri Museveni as winner of Saturday’s presidential election.  The commission says Museveni won with fifty-eight point six-four percent of tallied votes.

The commission claims seventy-six-year-old Museveni beat his main rival, thirty-eight-year-old Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, a popular musician-turned politician.  Kyagulanyi is said to have garnered thirty-four point eight–three percent of the total votes tallied.

Kyagulanyi has since rejected the declared results.  He says the election was rigged.  The Ugandan army and police have stepped up security in the capital city of kampala to prevent possible violence.

This will be Museveni’s sixth term in office.  He has ruled the country for thirty-five years now.

COVID-19 cases on the African continent now exceed three point two million as of Saturday, and the death toll has hit nearly seventy-eight thousand.

Africa centers for disease control and prevention, Africa CDC, says South Africa remains the hardest-hit country by the pandemic on the continent.  The country has one point three million COVID-19 confirmed, cases and a death toll of nearly thirty-five thousand.

Zambia and Senegal both reported highest daily spike on Saturday with seventeen hundred ninety-six and three hundred forty-two new cases respectively.