Coronavirus: South Africa now has 85 confirmed cases of COVID-19

Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize has announced that South Africa now has 85 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as there has been an increase of 23 confirmed cases.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, stated that it is closely monitoring the status of COVID-19 in the country.

It further stated that as of 17 March 2020, a total of 2 911 suspected cases of COVID-19 have been tested by public and private laboratories, of which 85 were positive.

The Gauteng Province has recorded the majority of cases (45) so far and followed by the Western Cape Province (16).

The 23 newly added cases consist of eight locally transmitted cases, four from the Gauteng Province, three from the KwaZulu-Natal Province and one from the Western Cape Province with no international travel history.

Contact tracing of those who might have come into contact with the patients is underway, this is done to reduce further local transmission of COVID-19 in the community in South Africa.

In response to minimising the number of locally transmitted cases, the NICD continues to strengthen surveillance activities to capacitate testing and following up on suspected cases

The breakdown per province is as follows:

GAUTENG: 14
-A 45-year-old male who had travelled to Belgium, UK, France and the US
-A 37-year-old male who had travelled to the UK
-A 54-year-old female who had travelled to the USA
-A 52-year-old male who had travelled to the UK
-A 25-year-old male who travelled to the UK
-A 52-year-old female who had travelled to Italy
-A 59-year-old male who travelled to the UK and Dubai
-A 57-year-old male who travelled to the USA
-A 60-year-old male who travelled to the USA
-A 37-year-old female who travelled to Italy and Dubai
-A 21-year-old female with no travel history
-A 34-year-old male with no international travel history
-A 26-year-old female with no international travel history
-A 32-year-old female with no international travel history

KWAZULU-NATAL:4
-A 48-year-old male who travelled to Dubai
-A 59-year-old female 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

WESTERN CAPE:5
-A 3-year-old male who travelled to the UK
-A 58-year-old male who travelled to the UK and Austria
-A 2-year-old male with no international travel
-A 62-year-old female who travelled to the UK and Ethiopia
-A 71-year-old female who travelled to the UK

It is notable that there are 8 cases of local transmission. Minister Mkhize stated that he must inform the public that there was a debate with clinicians, epidemiologists, virologists on when they, as government must release results to the public. These experts raised an issue of an ethical obligation to immediately alert patients as soon as the results become available.

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, they had announced to the public that all positive results will be verified through our public laboratories and the NICD.

In their efforts to ensure transparency, they have decided to release results as they are submitted by both public and private labs. In instances where their confirmation tests give contrary results, they will inform the public, make reference to that specific result
previously announced and give the outcome of the confirmation results.

Whilst the department respects that private laboratories have the capacity to test and on their own issue results, their intention and approach is to ensure that there is credibility in the information and results given to the public. Whilst they appreciate the importance of being transparent with South Africans, they will not do so irresponsibly and not take into account all clinical and any other broader implications of the information we give to the public. 

TEST RESULTS OF CITIZENS REPATRIATED FROM WUHAN
“It gives us great pleasure to also announce to South Africans that all the citizens from Wuhan were tested and their results came back negative for COVID-19,” – Minister Mkhize stated. 

“We continue to keep them in quarantine for the prescribed period and will thereafter initiate the process of reunifying them with the community, ” he concluded.