“Evidence from other countries indicates that the number of infected persons increases dramatically in the second week following confirmation of the first case,” Kagwe said.

In South Africa, the health ministry warned over the weekend that a potential spread through public transport would be devastating for the country.

“Once the coronavirus begins to spread in the taxis, trains, informal settlements, it’s going to create a new dynamic,” South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.

A week ago, the continent of 54 countries had fewer than 200 confirmed cases. But in the last few days, several African nations have reported their first cases of coronavirus, after weeks of being spared as the disease that was first reported in central China swept the globe.

The new infections have pushed the total number in Africa to more than 1,400, with 46 deaths as of Monday – a worrying trend for the continent’s fragile health care systems.

Experts have warned that a surge in cases of the pneumonia-like illness could overburden the health care systems in many African countries, and they say the rate of infection needs to be slowed so that people can get access to treatment.

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“Africa is in the morning of the Covid-19 outbreak” compared to other regions, Ahmed Ogwell, deputy director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said over the weekend.

“The message is act fast to flatten the curve. Folks, we have work to do,” he said.

“We must stay ahead of that curve to avoid heavy human suffering and losses,” he said. “If we get complacent, the virus will hit us harder than Europe or other parts because our health care systems are fragile.”

In Italy, the worst-hit country in Europe and the new epicentre of the pandemic, hospitals have been overwhelmed as cases rapidly mount – nearly 5,500 people have been killed by the virus, with almost 60,000 people infected so far.

Ogwell said Africa could learn from other regions and “avoid our graph following the same path”.

As of Monday, 43 countries in Africa had reported coronavirus cases, with Egypt and South Africa the worst affected.

In South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa’s most developed nation, cases jumped from 61 to 402 in a week, as of Monday. No deaths have been reported there.

Other countries badly hit by the outbreak in Africa include Algeria, with 201 cases and 15 deaths, and Morocco, which has reported 134 cases and four deaths. Many other African nations have had a small number of people test positive so far, while others have just confirmed their first cases.

Dozens of African countries have reported cases of local transmission.

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Across the continent, many countries have grounded flights and banned events and large gatherings including church meetings, weddings and funerals, to curb the spread of the disease. South Africa and Kenya have suspended all flights, while Ethiopian Airlines has halted flights to 30 countries.

World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivered a stark warning last week, saying although the number of Covid-19 cases in Africa was low, that may be because people were not getting diagnosed.

“Actually, in terms of confirmed cases, it’s the lowest region but we cannot take this number as the number of cases we have in Africa. Probably we have undetected or unreported cases,” Tedros said.

“In other countries, we have seen how the virus accelerates after a certain tipping point, so the best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst and prepare today,” the WHO chief said.

“We have seen how the virus speeds up and accelerates in other continents or countries. I think Africa should wake up, my continent should wake up,” said Tedros, who is from Ethiopia.

“I do think that cases are slipping through the net. There is an urgent need to investigate and address this point,” Francine Ntoumi, a parasitologist and public health expert at Marien Ngouabi University in the Republic of Congo, told Science magazine earlier this month.

As the numbers rise in Africa, testing is also a problem. The Africa CDC said about a dozen countries on the continent did not have the capacity to do their own testing and had to send samples to other nations like South Africa, which is also struggling to contain the virus.

In addition, millions of people do not have access to clean drinking water on the continent, and some countries have been ravaged by other infectious disease outbreaks such as HIV and Ebola, making it a challenge to contain the rapid spread of the new virus.

Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, noted at a briefing on Covid-19 last week that for households where many people were sleeping in the same space, with no running water, “the possibility of hand washing frequently and with soap is a challenge”.

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There is also concern that there are not enough intensive care units in Africa. Moeti said even South Africa, which has one of the most developed health care systems on the continent, would struggle to deal with the large numbers of critically ill patients “if the situation explodes”. Africa also had areas with large populations of people displaced by war and humanitarian crises, she said.