Comoros on Thursday reported its first confirmed case of coronavirus, making it the second-last African country to report a COVID-19 case. Comoros and Lesotho were the only two countries without any registered coronavirus cases left on the African continent.
“On this day of April 30, 2020, the government declares the first case of COVID-19 on Comoros,” President Azali Assoumani said during his address to the nation on Thursday, reported Al Jazeera.
The patient is a man in his 50s who came into contact with a French-Comorian national with recent travel history to France.
“The patient was admitted to the local hospital on April 23 for cough, sore throat, fever and difficulty breathing,” said Mr. Assoumani.
He said the patient’s state of health is gradually improving and that the people who came in contact with him recently were being tracked by the country’s authorities.
Mr. Assoumani said that the government has already ordered the closure of all borders and schools as precautionary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The president said the government is mainly focusing on saving the country’s healthcare system from overload, which would ultimately result in the adoption of even more strict measures to protect the population of some 832,000.
“While other countries who were hit earlier are preparing to go back to normality, our country is entering a critical phase,” Assoumani warned.
The government had imposed a night time curfew last week to limit the chances of coronavirus spreading in the country.
Assoumani said the government refrained from imposing a full lockdown in the country because most of the population lives off informal work.
“At this stage of the pandemic, we cannot afford to adopt measures that could lead to social and economic drama,” he added.
So far 53 countries in Africa have recorded over 37,402 coronavirus cases as on April 30, 2020.
