Latest confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa

12 March 2020

As the South African government, we take note of the announcement by the World Health Organisation Director General that it has declared COVID-19 a pandemic. A pandemic is a worldwide spread of a new disease.

Today, 12 March 2020, South Africa now has 17 confirmed cases of COVID-19. This is an additional 4 cases from yesterday.

The cases are from the following provinces:

KwaZulu-Natal: 1

A 38 year male from Durban who lives in Turkey and was visiting his family in South Africa has tested positive. He had traveled to the UK and returned to SA on the 7th March 2020.

Mpumalanga: 1

A 27 year old female from Mpumalanga who traveled to the United States. She returned to South Africa on the 7th March 2020.

Gauteng: 1

A 43 year old male from Johannesburg who had traveled to New York via Dubai and returned to South Africa on the 8th March 2020.

Free State: 1

A 32 year old male who came into contact with a Chinese businessman. This is the first case of local transmission as all others have been by patients who had travelled abroad.

At this stage, all patients are in self quarantine and have mild to moderate symptoms. They are also on symptomatic treatment.

Our tracing teams are now making a list and have started contacting individuals that have been identified as these patients contacts.

Please also note that the media briefing by the Inter-Ministerial will be held this afternoon. The time and venue will be announced in due course.

More information:

National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD)

Issued by Department of Health, 12 March 2020