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South African hospitals could be overwhelmed by coronavirus cases within a matter of weeks, according to the country’s top vaccine expert.

Hospitals in Cape Town are already near capacity, and the infection rate is reported to be rising sharply across the south of the country.

Doctors in Cape Town are warning that many hospitals there will be struggling to cope soon.

In the Eastern Cape province the situation is looking even worse.

One of the country’s top Covid-19 experts, Prof Shabir Madhi, called it “alarming” and said the true infection rate was now far higher than indicated by an overloaded testing system.

The professor warned that the struggling Eastern Cape could well give clues as to how the pandemic will affect the rest of the continent.

Anyone who thought Africa might be spared, perhaps because it has a relatively young population was, he said, guilty of wishful thinking.