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Coronavirus outbreak will cause a national crisis in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa says
- Epidemic will have a ‘huge impact’ on travel and hurt country’s already precarious economy, leader says
- A 38-year-old man who recently visited Italy became South Africa’s first confirmed case on Sunday
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The coronavirus outbreak is set to become a national crisis in South Africa, its President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday, as a flurry of new infections were reported across the continent.
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His comments came after a 38-year-old South African man tested positive for Covid-19 after returning from a trip to Italy with his wife on Sunday.
While the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases said the case was isolated and that containment measures, including monitoring people who had been in contact with the couple, were ongoing, Ramaphosa was downbeat.
“This will turn out to be a national crisis,” he told a press briefing. “It will have a huge impact on travel … it will hurt our economy, which we all know is in a very precarious situation.”
The virus outbreak, which has so far killed more than 3,380 people around the world, had already had a negative impact on tourism, he said.
South Africa reported its second recession in two years in the final three months of last year, dogged by rising debt, low growth and soaring unemployment, official figures show.
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