South Sudan Registers 1st Coronavirus Death

South Sudan recorded the first death from the novel coronavirus on Thursday, while relief agencies warned of a sharp rise in infections and the arrival of infection in two large and overcrowded camps for the displaced.

Since the first casualty was recorded on April 5, the death toll has reached 231 in the country which just recovered from a six-year civil war.

However the number two weeks ago was only 35 injuries.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health Makur Matur Kariom told reporters that an unnamed "high-ranking figure" arrived at a military hospital in critical condition on Wednesday and quickly died. Tests Thursday showed that that person was infected with the coronavirus.

Coronavirus Reaches Displaced Camps in South Sudan

South Sudan announced this week that the virus had reached a camp housing about 30,000 displaced people benefiting from the protection of the United Nations in the capital, Juba, since 2013. Two cases were confirmed in the camp.

It also found a COVID-19 infection in a similar camp north of Bentiu, which is hosting about 120,000 people.

"The sharp rise in COVID-19 patients is very worrying," said Doctors Without Borders Mission (MSF) Head Claudio Miglietta. 

[caption id="attachment_69641" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Egypt sends medical aid to South Sudan[/caption]

"But what is most worrisome is the spread of the virus among the population of some of the largest and most crowded camps in the country."

"Tens of thousands of people who live in the protection of civilian sites in southern Sudan, similar to Paneto and Malakal, face fragile conditions in an overcrowded environment and poor conditions in small shelters, some of which house 12 families, with scarcity of water and soap,” he added.

Miglietta stressed that the pandemic also affects efforts to treat diseases and other conflicts.

"Malaria, measles, pneumonia and acute diarrhea kill tens of thousands of people; people with chronic diseases need medication, and war-wounded people need operations, and mothers continue to deliver babies every day," he noted.

South Sudan suffers hunger and is in a humanitarian emergency even after the two main parties to the conflict formed a unity government in February.

The dispute continues between President Salva Kiir and his former rival, Riek Machar, now the vice president, on pivotal issues such as the pision of provinces.

[caption id="attachment_115246" align="aligncenter" width="650"] South Sudanese President Salva Kiir[/caption]

The high number of casualties comes with the authorities announcing easing restrictions, limiting curfews, and opening markets, shops, bars and restaurants.

On his part, said James Reynolds, head of the Red Cross mission, "We see a significant increase in the number of cases across the country. We are particularly concerned about the presence of two infections in a camp located on the outskirts of Juba.”

A regional official at the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the number of new cases of coronavirus in Africa could jump from thousands to 10 million during a period ranging between three and six months, according to a temporary statistical model, according to Sky News Arabia report.

The director of the World Health Organization’s Emergency Response Program for Africa, Michelle Yao, explained that this provisional prediction is subject to change, noting that the worst expectations for the Ebola outbreak were not fulfilled because people changed their behavior in time.

The poorest continents of the world recorded more than 17 thousand confirmed cases of COVID-19 disease, which is caused by the coronavirus, and about 900 deaths so far, and this is relatively few compared to some other regions of the world, but there are fears that this may confuse the weak health services on the continent. 

The spread of the virus in South Africa, which has the largest number of cases on the continent, has slowed after it began to implement strict general isolation measures, but other countries, such as Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Algeria, have seen above-average deaths.