South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to address the nation later on Monday on developments in the country's COVID-19 response, the presidency has said.

The address comes just a day after the country's COVID-19 infections surpassed the one million mark, the first country in Africa to hit the milestone.

With 1,004,413 confirmed cases, South Africa has reported more than twice the number of infections registered by the African country with the second-most cases. It has also recorded 26,735 COVID-19 related deaths.

South Africa's caseload accounts for nearly 40 percent of the continent's virus infections and more than 42 percent of the continent's virus-related fatalities.

A new coronavirus variant - known as 501.V2 - is believed to be responsible for the new wave of new infections.