The MEC for health, Madoda Sambatha, says five miners from the Eastern Cape and one from Gauteng - who recently travelled back to province's Impala mine to resume with their work - have been confirmed positive for the Coronavirus. He revealed this on Wednesday during his oversight visit to the mine, with the intention to review the Covid-19 compliance regulations following the first reported cases at the mine.

Sambatha says the six miners tested positive between 18-13 May, after travelling back to the province after being recalled to work. He adds 56 miners are currently quarantined at a mine hospital, one is in isolation, and 638 have been tested thus far.

This adds to the few other inter-provincial Covid-19 cases recorded in the province, where all miners who travelled from high-risk provinces are tested. Sambatha says 21 000 miners who reported back for duty were screened. So far the province has 65 active cases, following 39 recoveries and one death from the initial 115 confirmed cases across five districts in the province.

These recoveries were recorded in Dr Kenneth Kaunda which include Klerskdorp with (7) recorded recoveries and Bojanala which include Rustenburg with a record of (3). The department on Wednesday morning announced that a total of 1140 contacts of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the province were identified and 1 017 were successfully traced. The department further said that  622 contacts have completed 14 days monitoring period and only 10 contacts have tested positive.  

Meanwhile, Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize, on Tuesday, night announced that South Africa now has 24 264, of the total confirmed number of the virus. Mkhize also announced that the death toll linked to Covid-19 has jumped to 524 deaths while 12 741  recoveries have been recovered countrywide.

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