South Africa
SA’s ‘patient zero’ sent home─── 13:47 Mon, 23 Mar 2020
The KZN MEC for Health, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu, has announced that the first person in the country to have tested positive for the Covid-19 Coronavirus, the country’s so-called “patient zero” has been confirmed to be free of Covid-19.
The patient has returned home.
“Patient zero has been released from the hospital and he is free from the virus. You become free of the virus once you no longer have the symptoms and tested negative twice,” said Simelane-Zulu.
The MEC says other patients, including a couple who also tested positive for the virus, were released on Saturday after also testing negative on two different occasions.
"We believe it is the message we need to send to our people that once we have picked up the virus there is hope and people do recover," she added.
The wife of patient zero has also been cleared.
According to the Department of Health, there were 274 confirmed cases of the Covid-19 Coronavirus in South Africa as of Monday.
