South Sudanese authorities on Thursday confirmed a third case of coronavirus involving a 28-year-old woman.
Dr. Makur Koryom, the Undersecretary of the National Ministry of Health, told Radio Tamazuj that the patient had been in close contact with the first victim.
Koryom pointed out that the woman works for the United Nations in the country. “She is not a South Sudanese national. The patient had returned to her place of work in Torit on March 16,” he said.
He added, “The patient was identified in Torit town as part of contact tracing.”
The first index case involved a 29-year-old woman who had arrived in Juba from Netherlands and the second case was a 53-year-old woman who flew in from Kenya last month.
There are concerns a surge in COVID-19 cases would quickly overwhelm South Sudan's fragile health system.
The government has been urging all residents to adhere to the guidelines in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Besides observing high standards of hygiene, health authorities have been appealing to citizens to avoid unnecessary human contact.
Key symptoms of the new coronavirus include fever, dry cough and shortness of breath. The virus is spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes and the droplets land in the mouths and noses of another person.
A person can also get infected with coronavirus by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or their eyes.
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 1.5 million people and killed over 88,000 worldwide, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.