DRC: first case of coronavirus in Lubumbashi

A Ministry of Health employee collects samples for tests of Covid-19, a coronavirus, in Goma, in North Kivu, in the DRC. ALEXIS HUGUET / AFP

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The city of Lubumbashi has just registered its very first positive case of coronavirus. It is the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) of Kinshasa which published it in its bulletin, Friday evening. After a false alarm, a few weeks ago, Haut-Katanga thus becomes the 5th province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

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With our correspondent in Lubumbashi , Denise Maheho

The provincial government said in a statement that the coronavirus patient is a 58-year-old man who arrived from Nairobi and who crossed the border into Kasumbalesa.

Political actors and even NGOs from civil society call on Lushois to respect barrier gestures. Some even ask for more. This is the case of Ghislain Kyenge, former national deputy: "  I call on the authorities to do everything possible to trace the person who has been tested positive and his entourage and to make it widely known and intensify protective measures beyond those already known  ”.

For its part, the provincial government indicates that all of the patient's family contacts have been quarantined at their home, and that the sick person is stable. She was taken to the care center for this purpose, which is already operational.

“  At the current stage, the center is ready to receive patients with a capacity of 36 patients. But there is a second block which is being built and which will have a capacity for 42. We will therefore have, soon, a center with a capacity of more or less 80 patients,  "announced Joseph Nsambi , Provincial Minister of Health.

The announcement of the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was greeted with some emotion in Lubumbashi, where there are fears of fraudulent entries by potentially contaminated people at the border with Kasumbalesa.

► Read also: State of health emergency in the DRC: the president seizes the Parliament

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