South Africa records 119 new COVID-19 deaths, total hits 92,371

Visitors have Covid-19 vaccines administered at the Discovery Ltd. mass Covid-19 vaccination site in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. (Photo by Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

South Africa recorded 119 new COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s total number of fatalities to 92,371.

The country is the hardest-hit by the pandemic in Africa, accounting for more than a third of its confirmed cases.

Figures published on Saturday by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, indicated 7,759 new cases were recorded from 40,882 tests conducted over the past 24 hours. This takes the total number of infections reported in the country to 3,521,572.

So far, South Africa has conducted 21,527,936 tests since the onset of the pandemic.

The country is banking on vaccinations to curb further spread of the virus.

Some 28,308,644 vaccine doses have been administered across the country.