Harare (New Ziana)-Zimbabwe’s first Covid-19 patient, who resides in Victoria Falls, is still carrying the virus, tests conducted by the National Microbiology Reference Laboratory show.

The man had travelled to Britain on March 7 and returned to Zimbabwe a week later through South Africa, and mandatorily self-quarantined on arrival.

He fell sick days later, prompting health authorities to conduct Covid-19 tests. He tested positive, becoming Zimbabwe’s first Covid-19 patient on March 21, 2020.

This week, he was retested in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and his results remained positive.

In an update late Thursday, Ministry of Health and Child Care said 25 samples were tested and only the repeat test came out positive for Covid-19.

“The Ministry would like to report that today, the National Microbiology Reference Laboratory tested 25 samples including a sample of case #1. This repeat sample was collected to confirm clinical recovery according to World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. There were no new positive cases identified. All samples except that of case #1 tested negative for COVID-19.

“The WHO recommends that patients with mild confirmed COVID-19 who are cared for at home, must be negative twice, using PCR , on samples collected at least 24 hours apart , before they are released from home isolation,” said the Ministry.

To date the country has conducted 438 Covid-19 tests of which 427 were negative.

Zimbabwe has so far recorded eleven confirmed cases of Covid-19 including three deaths.

New Ziana