{"id":381775,"date":"2020-03-15T14:19:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T12:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=381775"},"modified":"2020-03-15T14:19:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T12:19:03","slug":"coronavirus-in-south-africa-jumps-to-51-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/381775\/coronavirus-in-south-africa-jumps-to-51-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus in South Africa jumps to 51 cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The number of Covid-19 infections in South Africa has risen to 51, health minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The number rose by 13 from Saturday\u2019s figure of 38.<\/p>\n<p>The recent cases were recorded in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n<p>Gauteng now has 24 cases while the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal have, respectively, confirmed 14 and 12 cases. Mpumalanga has recorded only one case.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Health Ministry said Mkhize and deputy health minister Joe Phaahla held an urgent meeting with all provincial MECs and heads of department for health on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the latest situational analysis of each province as more cases of Covid-19 cases are being confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Mkhize said: \u201cIn our engagement, it became clear that the role played by contact tracers is very important and their capacity needs to be strengthened.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The NHC agreed that in order to minimise the risk of further spread of the virus, contact tracing must be done within 48 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cabinet is expected to meet to discuss government&#8217;s approach to the outbreak.<\/p>\n<p>The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said while the country continues to see an increase in Covid-19 positive cases in South Africa, there is currently no evidence to suggest that Covid-19 is circulating in South Africa\u2019s population.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, the status of Covid-19 transmission is increasingly likely to shift based on trends found in other parts of the world. We call on all South Africans to continue to follow Covid-19 preventive measures such as meticulous hand hygiene and cough etiquette,\u201d said the institute.<\/p>\n<p>The NICD, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, has tested 1476 for SARS-CoV-2 \u00ad\u2013 the causative pathogen for Covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>The NICD said it has decided that doctors no longer need to contact the NICD for approval\u00a0for testing as long as they apply the case definition before testing.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The breakdown of new cases per province is as follows:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gauteng: 7<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A 60 year-old male who had travelled to Iran.<\/li>\n<li>A 36 year-old male who had travelled to the UK.<\/li>\n<li>A 54 year-old male who had travelled to Switzerland.<\/li>\n<li>A 27 year-old male who had travelled to the UK.<\/li>\n<li>A 21 year-old female who had travelled to Germany.<\/li>\n<li>A 53 year-old female who had travelled to Germany.<\/li>\n<li>A 29 year-old male who had travelled to Switzerland.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Western Cape: 5<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A 35 year-old female who had travelled to Germany.<\/li>\n<li>A 42 year-old female who had travelled to Switzerland and the UK.<\/li>\n<li>A 50 year-old male who had travelled to the Netherlands.<\/li>\n<li>A 33 year-old male who had travelled to Switzerland.<\/li>\n<li>A 35 year-old male who had travelled to Austria.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>KwaZulu-Natal: 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A 34 year-old male who had travelled to the UK.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/381723\/drastic-measures-to-stop-the-coronavirus-in-south-africa-including-a-travel-ban\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u2018Drastic measures\u2019 to stop the coronavirus in South Africa \u2013 including a travel ban<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The number of COVID-19 infections in South Africa has risen to 51, health minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":379947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-381775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381781,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381775\/revisions\/381781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}