Graça Freitas, who spoke at the usual daily press conference on the state of play of the pandemic in Portugal, confirmed that there are cases of "six citizens who in late March and early April, during the incubation period, were in Angola and then developed the disease in Portugal", and said that this "is not a new situation" or "an outbreak of the disease".
"We have been in contact with the Angolan Minister of Health to provide Angola with information that will allow us to retrospectively find a link to these cases in Angola, but as these people are in Portugal at the outset and will not have returned to Angola because they have closed borders, we are asking our own health authorities in the place of residence of these people to make a detailed epidemiological survey that can help in the retrospective knowledge of Angola," Graça Freitas described.
The Director General stressed that this "is just an attempt to understand if there has been any chain of transmission in the past" and promised "all the necessary support" to the Angolan Ministry of Health to have more knowledge about "a situation that is no longer active", she stressed.
Health Minister Sílvia Lutucuta said on Sunday that she was working with the Portuguese health authorities to find out more about the cases of covid-19s identified in Portugal with origin in Angola.
According to the epidemiological situation report released daily by the Portuguese Health Directorate General, Portugal registered six cases imported from Angola.
"From the first moment we got in touch with this news, we started contacts through diplomatic and direct channels with health institutions in Portugal and we are doing a joint work to clarify this situation", said Silvia Lutucuta in a press conference in Luanda.
"We still do not have data, there is a thorough work of epidemiological analysis of these cases that has to be done and will be done during the next few days", she added.
The country has so far registered 45 positive cases of covid-19, two of which have resulted in death. Portugal has 1163 deaths associated with covid-19 in 27,913 confirmed cases of infection.
