"The President of the Republic was not tested this time, nor was there any need to be tested," said this Tuesday the Minister of Health, Silvia Lutucuta, at a press conference in Luanda, adding that João Lourenço and the first lady (Ana Dias Lourenço) "have been tested on other occasions, with a negative result, and enjoy good health.
The minister also clarified the circumstances in which the other members of the MPLA's Political Bureau (BP) were tested after a positive case was detected at the ruling party summit in Angola.
Silvia Lutucuta explained that the public health and epidemiological surveillance recommendations were followed, according to which one should "know quickly who the contacts or people who interacted" with the person in question should be traced and tested.
"That's what happened and that's what happens in any situation. It's not just because I'm a member of the BP, every time a case comes up we have to take public health measures and trace the contacts, and that's what we did", he stressed.
The head of the Health portfolio also stressed that "testing takes time" and can take between 24 and 48 hours, adding that "in good time" information on the test results will be given to MPLA BP members.
The positive case was detected in a leader who attended the meeting last June 30.
Taking into account the result, "as a public health measure, and following the recommendations of the health authorities and the World Health Organization, there is a need to trace all contacts," an MPLA spokesperson explained to Lusa, indicating that all party leaders who attended the meeting were going to do the test on Tuesday "to confirm if they are infected" and seek to "cut the chain of transmission.
The MPLA's highest body has 72 members, but less than 50 people attended the meeting to comply with the social distancing and calamity state rules.
Members of the Political Bureau outside Luanda, a province under sanitary fence, participated via video conference.
Asked about the number of cases with no epidemiological link, which are close to a hundred, indicating that Angola will be close to community transmission in the country, Silvia Lutucuta advised "not to draw hasty conclusions", as the cases are still being investigated.
"The most important thing of all is for Angolans to realize that our picture has changed drastically," she said.
Angola has a total of 386 cases of infection with the new coronavirus, of which 21 deaths and 117 recovered.
