JUBA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan on Sunday confirmed the first person to test positive for COVID-19.
Riek Machar, South Sudan's First Vice President and deputy chairman of the high-level task-force on COVID-19, said the patient is a 29-year-old female who arrived in the country from the Netherlands through Addis Ababa on February 28.
"I would like to inform the public that on Saturday, April 4, 2020, the public health laboratory tested and confirmed a case of COVID-19," said Machar.
The suspect presented to the UN Clinic on April 2 with fever, cough, headache and shortness of breath, he added.
Machar said the government in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centres for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) have embarked on tracing individuals who might have interacted with the COVID-19 patient.
He said that the country's high-level task-force on COVID-19 has put in place solid mitigation measures against the viral respiratory disease.
