Coronavirus: South Sudan Confirms 1 New Case

Juba: South Sudan has confirmed Sunday its first case of the COVID19 diseases. The patient, a 29-year old female returned from Netherlands on 28 February.

South Sudan is the 44th country to confirm cases of COVID-19 in the African Region according to the World Health Organisation.

First Vice President Riek Machar, deputy chairperson of the High Level Taskforce on COVID-19 said the patient has been working from home since she started developing signs and symptoms of the coronavirus.

“The suspect presented to the United Nations clinic on the 2rd of April 2020 with fever, cough, headache and shortness of breath,” confirmed said.

 “The Ministry of health Rapid Response Team (RRT) went to the clinic and collected samples on that same day and the initial test came positive, and a second run of the confirmation test also returned positive,” Machar told Journalists at Pyramid hotel.

South Sudan, with 11 million people, has only four ventilators and wants to increase that number, said Mr Machar, who emphasised that people should stay one to two metres away from others.

“The only vaccine is social distancing,” Machar said.

The patient is under quarantine at UN premises and health workers are tracing the people who have been in contact with her, said David Shearer, head of UN Mission in South Sudan. He said he hoped the measures would contain the case.

“The UN is working together with the ministry of health, the World Health Organization and the High Level Taskforce to ensure that this case is handled well,” Shearer said.

“The patient has been in the country for five weeks very longer than 14 days and there is need to check where that person has been in conduct with to perhaps have gotten the virus but also to make sure it is important to make a thresh to where she has been.”

Meanwhile the government is urging the public to remain calm and that the High Level Taskforce has put in place relevant public health measures.

To prevent the spread of the virus in South Sudan, President Salva Kiir last week imposed a curfew from 8pm to 6am for six weeks and closed borders, airports, schools, churches and mosques.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and a cough, and the vast majority survive. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can be more severe, causing pneumonia or death.

The patient is currently in isolation and is in good health and the ministry of health is leading a full outbreak investigation World Health Organization (WHO) and the center for disease control and prevention (CDC) including identifying and following up all the possible contacts, Machar says.

He reiterated that people should practicing social distancing as the only way to minimize the risk of contracting and transmitting the coronavirus disease. The Government further urged employers, both public and private to encourage their employees to work from home to keep social distancing mechanism.

“No physical contact outside of household including no handshaking, no hugging, and keep 2 meters (6 feet) distance between two individuals and wash hands regularly with soap and water,” Machar said.

With the disease in South Sudan, there are now only 3 countries in Africa that have not reported any cases of Covid-19: the Kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa and the island nations of Comoros and Sao Tome and Principe.