Health minister Zweli Mkhize has confirmed that there are now 4,996 positive Covid-19 cases in South Africa.

This is up from the 4,793 Covid-19 cases announced on Monday, meaning a rise of 203 cases over the past 24 hours.

Mkhize also reported that the number of deaths from the coronavirus now stands at 93, up from the 90 deaths reported on Monday. He said that the country has seen 2,073 recoveries.

The minister said that all three new deaths were in the Western Cape,and all had underlying issues.

He said hypertension, diabetes and obesity were the three most common comorbidities associated with those at risk of dying. Those above age 63 were also more vulnerable, along with people suffering from lung problems.

The South African mortality rate has been at about 1.9%, he said. Some countries in Europe had gone as high as 14%.

A total of 185,497 tests have been conducted so far, up from a total of 178,470 before.

Mkhize said the reason the number of infected people was continuing to rise steadily was because of increased testing but also because people were continuing to interact in their communities even after travel from abroad was halted.

He said epidemiologists had come up with three models, one being if the virus was allowed to spread unchecked and the peak would be reached rapidly, while the best-case scenario was that the peak would happen much later. A third model would have deferred the peak, but with it still coming earlier than expected.

Mkhize added that foreign-trained doctors would only be able to start practising in South Africa once they were registered with the Health Professions’ Council of SA.

However, the state felt there would still be a shortfall of doctors, so the decision to bring 217 doctors from Cuba was a way to augment and reinforce South Africa’s health response, especially in the area of community medicine, which South Africa was weak in with its focus on hospital care, while Cuba’s health model was different and community driven, and therefore already more in line with the ambitions of the National Health Service.

We welcome the Cuban doctors, 26 of whom will help in the Western Cape. KwaZulu-Natal will get 28 Cuban doctors while Gauteng will get 29 doctors. Mpumalanga and Limpopo will get 13 doctors respectively, distributed on the weight of COVID-19 in the province.

Livestream: Zweli Mkhize's address on COVID-19.

Courtesy of ENCA.