Just a few minutes after President Emmerson Mnangagwa cleared the air on the cause of the death of Agriculture Minister Perrance Shiri, more confusion has resurfaced.

President Mnangagwa earlier announced that Shiri had died of Covid-19 and was captured by all state media apparatus including the sole television broadcaster the ZBC which provided video evidence of the President speak.

Mnangagwa confirmed this while addressing mourners at the late minister’ s Borrowdale home in Harare Thursday afternoon.

“Now that it is confirmed that Minister Shiri died of Covid 19, we will follow World Health Organisation (WHO) regulations on how the funeral should proceed,” said.

However, the family of late Shiri appears to be knowing more and suspects that he succumbed to food poisoning, not Covid-19.

In earlier and subsequent statements the family said he died after severe vomiting and showed symptoms consistent with food poisoning.

“We have noted social media reports of Covid-19 suspicions. Although we cannot rule that out, what we know for now is that he started vomiting severely and was attended to by doctors who suspected food poisoning,” family spokesperson Benjamin Chikerema told the media.

“He started vomiting and was taken to the doctors who said they suspected he had eaten poisoned food. Around 3 am, he started having difficulties in breathing and died when he was being taken to a Chinese (medical) facility,” he said.

The state broadcaster has since uploaded the video from its site raising confusion and suspicion.