President Felix Tshisekedi has said hospitals in Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa are "overwhelmed" by a rise in Covid-19 infections, as the country is facing a third wave of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.

"I am going to take drastic measures to deal with this upsurge of the disease. We're talking about the Indian variant in particular," Tshisekedi told reporters, referring to the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India and is highly infectious.

He did not specify what measures he planned to take.

"You know very well that the AstraZeneca vaccine has been and continues to be problematic, both in terms of side effects but also in terms of trust with the population," Tshisekedi said.