South Sudan confirms first locally transmitted COVID-19 case
Photo: Coronavirus test
April 11, 2020 (SSNN) — South Sudan government has confirmed its first locally transmitted coronavirus case originating from the first case bringing the total number to four.
The country’s coronavirus incident manager at the ministry of health, Dr Angok Gordon Kuol, said the fourth case is a local who contracted the disease from the first case.
“The fourth case is an adult, a contact of the first case. The case is confirmed to be a local transmission because it is attached to the first case imported and now the person here got it from the first case,” he said.
“The issue of giving details of the cases is being reserved for now because it’s creating stigmatization,” Dr. Angok added describing the latest patient as a driver of the first case of the UN employee.
On Monday, the High-Level Taskforce on Covid-19 said the Ministry of Health was investigating four more suspected cases of the pandemic in the country.
The case brings the number of those who have tested positive to four. The other cases were confirmed on 5, 7 and 9 April.
The two patients work for the UN. The first patient was a UN staff, 29, who arrived from the Netherlands via Addis Ababa on February 28 while the second is a 53-year-old woman who travelled to Juba from Nairobi, Kenya, in March.
Speaking on Tuesday in Juba, President Salva Kiir also said 65 contacts were listed, while the ministry of health’s rapid response teams collected 50 samples from the contacts of the three cases for testing.
Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in almost all of the countries in the world, including South Sudan’s neighbours.
There’s currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
You can protect yourself and help prevent spreading the virus to others by washing your hands regularly for 20 seconds, with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub, or cover your nose and mouth with a disposable tissue or flexed elbow when you cough or sneeze.
The other preventive measures according to WHO are voiding close contact (one metre or three feet) with people who are unwell and staying home and self-isolate from others in the household if you feel unwell.
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