By A Correspondent- Zimbabwe now has 14 cases of coronavirus, an increase of one from Friday, the ministry of health reported early Sunday.

The ministry offered no further details about the latest case, but a provincial tally accompanying the update suggested the positive sample was from Bulawayo, which now has two confirmed cases.

The previous Bulawayo case was that of Ian Hyslop, a 79-year-old old pensioner who lived with his wife in a gated retirement home. He died on April 4, but due to delays in getting his sample to Harare the results were only confirmed on April 7.

Some 47 people who came into contact with him have been traced, officials said, including seven staff members at Ganda Lodge in Hwange where he went on safari with his wife between 14 and 16 March. The seven were “asymptomatic”, the ministry said without confirming whether specimens had been collected for testing.

The update for Saturday, posted on the ministry’s Twitter handle at 1.33AM on Sunday, “came later than anticipated because they carried out a massive number of tests… using one lab,” government spokesman Nick Mangwana said.

The health ministry said its main lab in Harare, the only one testing for coronavirus so far, examined 84 samples from four provinces, obtaining 79 results of which one was positive for the virus which causes a disease known as Covid-19.

“The samples were from Bulawayo (58), Harare (23), Mashonaland East (2), and Mashonaland Central (1). Of the 79 samples available at the time of the print, one tested positive for Covid-19. More details to follow later,” the update said.

The ministry says to date the country has run 547 tests, which health experts say is too low for a population of 15 million.

Three people, all men aged 79, 50 and 30, have died from the virus, critics of the government’s handling of the crisis say the numbers are understated because of the low testing, and the secrecy surrounding a community of about 500 Chinese nationals who arrived in the country since January.

Meanwhile, the ministry of health said it had established a new testing lab at Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo which will handle all samples from the southern parts of the country, starting on Easter Monday.

The lab, to be run in conjunction with the National University of Science and Technology, has capacity to test 300 samples daily, officials said.-Online