South Africa on Thursday confirms its first case of the novel coronavirus, a 38-year-old male who traveled to Italy, health ministry announced.
It is the first case in southern Africa, and the latest confirmed case in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Senegal.
“This morning,… the National Institute for Communicable Diseases confirmed that a suspected case of COVID-19 has tested positive,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says in a statement.
The case is detected in the country’s eastern Kwa-Zulu Natal province.
The patient and his wife were part of a group of 10 people who arrived back in South Africa from Italy on March 1.
Two days later, on March 3, he consulted a private general practitioner with a fever, headache, sore throat and a cough.
— AFP
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