South Sudan confirms 16 new COVID-19 cases

Coronavirus cases in South Sudan rose to 74 Wednesday after the government announced 16 new cases.

Some of the new cases are South Sudanese nationals who have been granted permission to travel to the states from Juba, according to Dr. Richard Lako, Health Ministry’s Director General for Policy Planning.

“Some of the cases are contacts of the previous 58 confirmed cases. South Sudan has had two recoveries,” he explained.

 The health official said the new cases were detected from 88 samples which were tested in Juba. “We are currently following 72 cases,” he added.

Lako, who is also a member of the high-level taskforce on COVID-19, has blamed the rising cases of community transmission of coronavirus disease in the country on non-compliance with preventive measures.

South Sudan government is implementing a dusk to dawn curfew and encouraged everyone to adopt the use of cloth face masks at all times to guard against the spread of the coronavirus.

More than 3.6 million people around the world have been confirmed infected with the new coronavirus so far, and nearly 257,000 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 1.2 million people have recovered.