Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, tests positive for Covid-19

Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday morning (12) after attending an official memorial service for former president Frederik Willem de Klerk, official sources confirmed.

The president, who was vaccinated in February with a dose of Janssen vaccine, has “mild” symptoms, according to the South African presidency in a statement released yesterday.

“The president began to feel bad after leaving the memorial service,” the message reads, adding that Ramaphosa is “in good spirits.”

The head of state is being assisted by a military medical team and will be quarantined in Cape Town, where a religious ceremony was held in memory of the former president, the last South African president of the “apartheid” period, who died in last month.

The South African presidency said Cyril Ramaphosa had tested negative in several tests carried out this week during a trip he took to several countries in West Africa. He also tested negative on the day of his return to South Africa last Wednesday.

The statement also highlighted that today’s ceremony was held in compliance with all sanitary protocols, including hygiene measures and social distancing, and that all people in contact with the president are being monitored.

“The president says that his own infection serves as a wake-up call for all people in the country to be vaccinated and to look out for exposures,” the statement said.

South Africa, which remains the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa, is currently experiencing its fourth wave of infections, presumably driven by the omicron variant of the coronavirus.