South Africa’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has risen to 11 people – the highest number of deaths from the disease reported in Southern Africa so far, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Monday.
The fatalities came from among the 1,655 confirmed cases of the virus in the country, Mkhize said, adding that the number of infected patients had increased by 70 since the previous update issued at the weekend.
The country’s most industrialised region, Gauteng Province, remains the area with the highest number of cases with 704, followed by the Western Cape Province with 454 cases, and KwaZulu-Natal Province with 246 cases, the minister said.
He added that Free State Province has 87, Eastern Cape Province has 31, Limpopo Province has 19, Mpumalanga Province has 18, North West Province has 11, and Northern Cape Province eight, with 77 unallocated cases on the books.
As the country prepares to roll out a door-to-door mass testing programme, the minister said so far his office had conducted 56,873 tests, an increase of 2,936 from those reported at the weekend.
South Africa’s outbreak of the pandemic became known in the first week of March, when a Durban resident returned home from an Italian holiday infected with the virus.
He has since been cured of the disease after treatment.
NM/jn/APA