Africa’s capacity for tackling the coronavirus that emerged in China in January was improving rapidly, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Thursday, as the global number of cases of the respiratory illness rose beyond 28,000.

Countries around the world are on high alert after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a global health emergency last week due to its rapid spread.

No confirmed cases had been identified in Africa by 5pm on Thursday, despite a steady uptick in the number of countries reporting cases of the new virus, known as 2019-nCov.

By this stage there had been more than 28,085 confirmed cases and 563 deaths in mainland China, according to data published by the US Johns Hopkins Centre for Systems Science and Engineering. A further 259 cases and two deaths had been confirmed in 27 other countries.

“The resources are more limited in Africa, and the response would be more challenging but there has been excellent progress in many settings,” the CDC’s Barbara Marston said in a telephone briefing from the US on Thursday afternoon.