The Angolan Minister of Health, Silvia Lutucuta, announced this Saturday that there are two positive cases of infection with the new corovirus causing the Covid-19 pandemic, both of which are Angolan citizens from Portugal.
Among these is Osvaldo Macaia, 38, Sonangol's administrator, who arrived at Luanda's 4 de Fevereiro International Airport on March 17 from Lisbon.
According to the same source, the head of Sonangol was screened at the airport and "followed all procedures", staying in home quarantine.
"We activated the protocol and conditions were created to do the test, which was positive," he said.
Osvaldo Macaia only began to show the first symptoms 24 hours after his arrival.
The transfer of Sonangol's administrator to the unit where he is currently under observation, Clínica Girassol in Luanda, was coordinated by members of the Ministry of Health.
At her press conference on Saturday, Minister Silvia Lutucuta said that the necessary sanitary instructions are being given to mitigate the epidemic and called for the population, especially travellers arriving from countries with community circulation of the virus, to comply with the mandatory quarantine, which she considered "a key priority".
He recalled that in recent days travellers arriving in Angola from Portugal - Lisbon and Oporto - who have been given the possibility of home quarantine, appealed to anyone who knows of anyone who has recently travelled to the affected areas and is not complying with the isolation, to report the situation to number 111.
"There will be no contemplations, these people will be taken to the institutional quarantine centres", he stressed, ensuring that the capacity to screen these patients will be increased.
Lutucuta also pointed out that there will be additional flights from Lisbon and Oporto and said that the government is preparing conditions for institutional quarantine of passengers, ensuring that immediate conditions will be created in the centres.
