Coronavirus: Burundi records 12 new cases, including 5 imported

30 Août 2020

Bujumbura, Burundi, August 30 (Infosplusgabon) - Burundi has recorded 12 new cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19), including five imported, after 2,183 tests, the ministry of Public Health and the Fight against HIV/AIDS reported on Sunday.

The five imported cases were found in Makamba (south) on Burundians returning from exile in Tanzania (4 cases) and in Kirundo (north) on former Burundian refugees from Rwanda (1 case).

The ministry of Health had previously reported three other imported cases on a humanitarian flight from Australia.

The first two officially reported cases in Burundi in late March had also been imported, one from Rwanda and one from the United Arab Emirates.

Faced with the growing spread of the pandemic, the Burundian authorities launched a massive screening campaign for three months, starting on June 6.

The results of this campaign show that 22,044 tests have been carried out, including 254 positive results, zero deaths and 87 active cases.

The cumulative total, before and during the campaign, amounts to 445 infections, 357 recoveries and one death.

A recent situation report jointly prepared by the ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), estimated the overall positivity rate at 2.12 per cent and the case-fatality rate, or risk of dying from the virus, at 0.24 per cent in Burundi.

In this country of 11.5 million inhabitants, reputed to be sedentary, the majority of cases (82%) are concentrated in the cosmopolitan city of Bujumbura, Burundi's economic capital.

The average age of confirmed cases is 37 years, with 11.52 per cent of confirmed cases in the 15 to 24 age group, 2.69 per cent aged 15 to 18 years and 8.31 per cent aged 19 to 24 years.

The sex ratio is 2.5; that is, about three infected men for every woman in Burundi, where 19 of its 47 districts are affected by the pandemic (40.4%), in 11 of the country's 18 provinces (61%).

Unlike in the rest of the world, containment has never been considered in Burundi.

FIN/ INFOSPLUSGABON/SDX/GABON2020

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