Eswatini COVID-19 cases now 22

Mbabane: Eswatini has recorded 3 more COVID-19 positive cases, which has seen numbers jumping from 19 to 22.

This was announced by the Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi in a statement on Saturday, April 18, 2020.

The Minister of Health announced that the Ministry received 51 results of which 48 were negative and three of them were positive.

The Minister also disclosed that 9 out of 20 RFM workers have been tested following contact with the 18^th case and have been cleared.

Nkosi further revealed that all the three who tested positive were males, two of which resides in the Manzini Region and one in the Hhohho Region.

Announcing the results the Minister said “the 20^th case is a 53 years old male residing in the Manzini Region, who presented with fever and flu symptoms. The ministry revealed that he has no travel history or any contact with a confirmed cases”.

“The 21^st case is a 31 years old male residing in the Hhohho Region who presented with cough and fever. He has no history of travel, but is a contact of case number 17, while the 22^nd case is a 44 years old male residing in the Manzini Region who presented with fever and flu symptoms and has no history of travel or contact with a confirmed case”.

To date Eswatini has 22 covid-19 cases confirmed, eight cases have been treated, 10 are undergoing treatment, one has died and three are undergoing admission process.

The ministry continues to urge the public to cooperate with rapid response teams as they go about their duties of finding contacts of positive cases.

Eswatini extended the partial lockdown by 21 days in a bid to halt the spread of Covid-19, an infectious disease caused by the new coronavirus. The disease causes respiratory illness with flu-like symptoms such as a dry cough, high fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty in breathing.

People can protect themselves by washing hands frequently, avoiding touching their faces, and avoiding close contact with (staying at least one meter away from) other people.

The coronavirus was first recorded in Wuhan, china, in December 2019, and rapidly spread to other parts of the world. According to statistics in the coronavirus global data as of April 19, 2020, 1:00pm there were 2,347,778 confirmed cases worldwide with 161,126 deaths and 605,680 recoveries since the outbreak over the past four months.