Pretoria, June 29 (RHC)-- South Africa's current surge of COVID-19 cases is expected to dramatically increase in the coming weeks and press the country's hospitals to the limit, the health minister said.

South Africa, a country of 57 million people, already has more than a third of the reported cases for all 54 countries in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people.

More than 4,300 people have been hospitalized out of South Africa's 138,000 confirmed cases, Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said in a statement.  He warned the number is expected to rise quickly.  "We are seeing a rapid rise in the cumulative number of positive COVID-19 cases indicating that, as we had expected, we are approaching a surge during the ... months of July and August,” Mkhize said in a statement. 

“It is anticipated that while every province will unfortunately witness an increase in their numbers, areas where there is high economic activity will experience an exponential rise,” said Mkhize, saying that the cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban will see the biggest increases.