South Africa confirmed its first coronavirus case after a 38-year-old man who traveled to Italy tested positive, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.
A tracer team has been sent to South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province along with epidemiologists and clinicians from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Mkhize said in a statement on Thursday.
The infected South African, who was part of a group of 10 people who traveled to Italy, returned home on March 1, went into self-isolation on March 3 and is now being treated in the hospital.
It has taken more than two months for the virus to reach South African from mainland China, where it originated.
