Confirmed coronavirus cases rises to 85, including a 2 year-old.
A 2-year-old boy from the Western Cape who has not travelled internationally has become the youngest confirmed case in South Africa as confirmed cases jumped to 85 overnight – up by a massive 23 from Monday’s figures.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize last night in a statement said that there were 14 new cases in Gauteng, including four people who had no international travel history. KwaZulu-Natal registered four new cases, including three who have no travel history, while Western Cape has five new confirmed, including the two year who has no travel history.
Mkhize said: “It is notable that there are eight cases of local transmission.”
The pandemic which has claimed more than 7500 lives worldwide has forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to call for a state of disaster – a move that is likely to change the way of way as we know it for the foreseeable future and wreck havoc on the economy, particularly the tourism industry.
Mkhize said there has been a skirmish with clinicians, epidemiologists, virologists on when the government must release results of the tests to the public.
“These experts raised an issue of an ethical obligation to immediately alert patients as soon as the results become available,” Mkhize said.
“This therefore means that by the time a confirmation test is conducted in public laboratories, patients would have been notified of their initial results. This clarification is important because as government, we had announced to the public that all positive results will be verified through our public laboratories and the NICD.”
The Minister also said all the citizens from Wuhan, China have been tested and their results came back negative for the deadly virus.
However, Mkhize added that the department will continue to keep them in quarantine for the prescribed period and will thereafter initiate the process of “reunifying them with the community.”
Breakdown of the 23 new cases per province:
GAUTENG: 14 new infections
A 45-year-old man who had travelled to Belgium, UK , France and the US
A 37-year-old man who had travelled to the UK
A 54-year-old woman who had travelled to the USA
A 52-year-old man who had travelled to the UK
A 25-year-old man who travelled to the UK
A 52-year-old woman who had travelled to Italy
A 59-year-old man who travelled to the UK and Dubai
A 57-year-old man who travelled to the USA
A 60-year-old man who travelled to the USA
A 37-year-old woman who travelled to Italy and Dubai
A 21-year-old woman with no travel history
A 34-year-old man with no international travel history
A 26-year-old woman with no international travel history
A 32-year-old woman with no international travel history
WESTERN CAPE: 5 new infections
A 3-year-old male who travelled to the UK
A 58-year-old man who travelled to the UK and Austria
A 62-year-old woman who travelled to the UK and Ethiopia
A 71-year-old woman who travelled to the UK
A 2-year-old male with no international travel
KZN: 4 new infections
A 48-year-old man who travelled to Dubai
A 59-year-old woman with no international travel history
A 5-year-old male with no international travel history
A 3-year-old male with no international travel history
By Kabelo Khumalo
