The number of COVID-19 related deaths in Africa surpassed the 60,000 mark on Wednesday as countries switch focus to acquisition of vaccines to stop the virus.

According to the latest data from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the continent's total number of reported deaths reached 60,254 by Wednesday afternoon from a caseload of 2,544,950.

South Africa remains the hardest-hit country by the pandemic on the continent, having reported the highest number of infections and deaths.

The country has registered 940,212 confirmed cases and 25,246 fatalities, accounting for 41.9 percent of Africa's death toll and 36.9 percent of the total infections.

Morocco is the second-worst hit country, but has reported less than half the figures recorded by South Africa.

The north African country has registered 420,648 infections and 7,030 fatalities.

Other than the two, the only other African countries that have reported more than 100,000 COVID-19 cases are Egypt (127,061), Tunisia (123,323) and Ethiopia (120,638).

A total of ten countries on the continent have registered more than 1,000 COVID-19 related deaths.

The Africa CDC data also showed that 2,145,138 patients have successfully recovered from the disease.