ADDIS ABABA, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 968 after 137 new cases were confirmed, the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health said in a statement on Friday.
This is so far the highest daily increase in the Horn of Africa country.
The ministry in a statement issued on Friday revealed that from the total of 5,015 medical tests that were conducted in the last 24 hours, 137 of them tested positive for COVID-19.
The statement further said all 137 new COVID-19 cases are Ethiopian nationals, with their age ranging from four to 75 years old.
The ministry said that 197 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have so far recovered from the virus.
The ministry also disclosed a 62-year-old man succumbed to the disease on Friday, raising the number of COVID-19 deaths to eight.
Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation with about 107 million people, confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 13.
The Ethiopian government has instituted a wide range of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19.
In April, the Ethiopian House of People's Representatives - the lower house of the Ethiopian parliament - announced a five-month state of emergency to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Enditem
