Coronavirus: President Kiir Confirms Third Case In Torit

South Sudan President Salva Kiir Maryardit (R) and First Vice President Riek Machar (L) seen in an earlier photograph: Courtesy Photo SS Journalists

By Sheila Ponnie

President Salva Kiir, who is also the chairman of the High Level Task Force on Covid -19 confirmed South Sudan’s 3^rd coronavirus infection during a press conference in Juba Thursday.

“So far, we have three confirmed cases of COVID-19 all from people who have travelled to Juba and Torit from COVID-19 Infected country”, President Kiir announced.

The patient is a 50-year-old woman who travelled from Juba to Torit where she had contacts with about 5 people. President Kiir says all the five contacts have been traced and shall be subjected to tests while in quarantine. He says the ministry of health has listed up to 65 people who came into physical contact with the three Covid-19 patients and shall be quarantined and tested for the pandemic. So far, the Rapid Response team has only managed to collect 50 samples from the 65 contacts, according to the country’s High Level Taskforce on Covid -19.

Kiir advises citizens in the country, particular those in the capital Juba and people in Torit, Eastern Equatoria state to take extra precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the disease across the country.

David Shearer, special representative of the UN secretary-general for South Sudan says the Insider in an exclusive interview Thursday that the UN to impose strict measures to prevent further spread of the virus among the international and national staff and one of these measures included compulsory quarantine.

“We have frozen all travel of staff into the country and anybody who came in a couple of weeks ago have gone into compulsory quarantine for 14 days. We have drastically reduced the numbers in our offices so that people are working from home in their home accommodations, so we are limiting the contact between people. We have reduced the internal flights so that we don’t have people going to the states to minimize any risk of passing it on.” Shearer told the Insider on a phone interview in Juba.

He said all national staff are restricted from accessing the UN bases to prevent them from contracting the disease. Shearer says everything is at lockdown at the UN and people would only get out to access essential goods.

While announcing the country’s 3^rd positive case President Kiir sounded a warning to citizens to refrain from racist comments and xenophobic attacks on foreigners.

“I must warn you that COVID-19 can be brought into the country by anyone, including South Sudanese. I therefore call upon you to exercise restraint and avoid hate speeches and xenophobic utterances against our guests and those who have come to provide services to us from other countries.” Kiir warned.

The president released 2 million US Dollars to the health ministry to help curb the spread of the disease. He also gave 1 million US Dollars to support South Sudanese students on government scholarships abroad.

He urged citizens to respect and strictly follow the directives and advice given by the taskforce although these measures would be inconveniencing to the citizens and worsen the country’s already fragile economy.

While the UN urges the ministry of health to test as many South Sudanese as possible because the first confirmed positive woman contracted the virus inside South Sudan.

“we are testing our staff but we urge the ministry of health to accelerate the testing process of South Sudanese communities to determine the extent to which the virus has infected people in the country to enable the us put measures to contain the pandemic,” Shearer said.