Namibia says third coronavirus patient came from Zimbabwe

By Sipho Mabuza | ZimLive.com |

Zimbabwe’s insistence that it is still free of the novel coronavirus was called into fresh question on Thursday after Namibian officials said a man who arrived from the Netherlands via Zimbabwe had tested positive.

On Monday, it was revealed that a woman who fell sick while in Victoria Falls tested positive for the disease upon her return to the United Kingdom.

Zimbabwean officials who insist that they have so far not recorded any positive tests for coronavirus admitted Monday that they had tested just 14 people since the disease outbreak in China last December.

Namibia’s health minister Kalumbi Shangula told journalists in Windhoek that the country had recorded its third coronavirus case – a 61-year-old German man who entered the country on March 13 from Amsterdam via Zimbabwe.

Shangula said the man had been placed in medical isolation and was in a stable condition.

Authorities said they were trying to track down individuals he may have come into contact with.

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association is preparing to go to court to force the government to conduct more tests on people with flu-like symptoms, fearing authorities are lulling the population when the disease is already in the country.

Zimbabweans generally do not trust their government, and many fear they are being misinformed.

Earlier, Shangula said a couple from Romania who both tested positive for coronavirus after travelling through Spain and Qatar before arriving in Windhoek were “feeling better”.

The couple were in contact with 17 people who had been placed in isolation, he said.