HARARE – Two more people have tested positive for coronavirus in Zimbabwe, bringing the total to 13 cases, officials announced on Friday.
The ministry of health said it tested 25 samples, two of which came back positive. They are being linked to ‘Patient 10’, a 21-year-old Harare woman who tested positive on April 6 after returning from the United Kingdom.
“The two new cases involve two 21-year-old male residents of Harare who travelled together with Patient 10,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the two new patients were “clinically stable and under self-isolation at home.”
The two were contacted and tested as part of contact tracing once the 21-year-old woman tested positive for the virus which has killed three people, according to official data which some say is unreliable due to the low testing rate.
Under 450 people have been tested for the virus since the outbreak was reported in China last December.
The government imposed a 21-day lockdown since March 20 in a bid to curb the virus spread, but Zimbabwe’s highly informalised economy is threatening to unravel the restrictions amid worsening food shortages.
Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, had killed 101,732 people as of 9PM on Friday, from 1,687,857 infections. Some 375,221 people were reported to have recovered.
