South Sudan’s Vice President and wife test positive for Covid-19

Written by Angella Semu

The vice president of south Sudan who is also the defence minister Riek Machar and his wife Angelina Teny have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The office of the vice president confirmed this in a statement on Monday.

According to the report issued from his office, a number of his office staff and bodyguards had also tested positive for COVID-19.

A report by Reuters revealed that Machar together with his wife are currently in self-isolation for 14 days in his residence.

Authorities reported two COVID-19 cases in a camp outside the capital Juba last week and this has raised concerns among humanitarians due the the crowded state of the camps which have over tens of thousands of internally displaced persons living there.

A statement issued by International Committee of the Red Cross in South Sudan also disclosed that measures such ad social distancing and regular hand washing would not be easily applicable in the camp.

South Sudan has so far a total of 347 recorded cases of coronavirus and six deaths.

Maneno Chimulala

I am a journalist, educator, and activist with passion for telling stories about social justice, sports and political issues. I graduated from Mzuzu University. I started my career at the Maravi Post online publication in 2012 as an intern while in college. Upon graduating from Mzuzu University I was offered a job as Sports Reporter because of my background as a goalkeeper and rose to the position of sub editor. I also had a short stint with Nyasatimes, Malawi Punch and Malawi Digest. Over the past seven years, I have worked intimately with rural organizations and communities in Malawi on human rights, girl child education and grassroots development projects. With an academic background in education, I also volunteer as male champion for girls’ education under Girls Empowerment Networks (GENET) in Malawi’s South West Education Division (SWED).