South Sudan confirms its fifth Covid-19 case
Friday April 24 2020
Members of the South Sudanese Ministry of Health Rapid Response Team prepare to take a sample from a woman at her home after recently coming into contact with a confirmed Covid-19 coronavirus case in Juba, South Sudan on April 14, 2020. PHOTO | ALEX MCBRIDE | AFP
South Sudan confirmed its fifth Covid-19 case Thursday after testing travellers headed in and out of Juba.
Dr Angok Gordon, Covid-19 incident manager at the National Ministry of Health, told The EastAfrican on Thursday evening that the case describing is a South Sudanese national.
“The fifth case is confirmed as a local transmission. We today tested some people who wanted to travel out of the state and one tested positive of the pandemic” said Dr Angok
The Ministry of Health, through an order from the High-Level Taskforce on Covid-19, introduced a policy of testing travellers from Juba to all States as a preventive measure to mitigating the spread of the virus to the grassroots.
The policy permits an individual to travel to the state with clearance license.
Thursday’s results according to Dr Angok came as a result of the policy.
The case brings the number of those who have tested positive to five. The other cases were confirmed on 5, 7, 9 and 23 April.
Two patients work for the United Nations (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.