South Africa now has 1380 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections and six deaths as a result of the Coronavirus.
This is an increase of 27 new cases and one new death from Tuesday’s figures as announced by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.
On Wednesday, Mkhize paid homage to Professor Gita Ramjee, who was the sixth death on Tuesday night.
Ramjee had dedicated most of her life dedicated to researching and fighting the HIV virus.
She was a world-renowned vaccine scientist and HIV prevention researcher with the South African Medical Research Council.
Mkhize described her as a stellar professional.
He said she had recently returned to the country from a conference in London and had shown no symptoms of the virus, until later on.
Mkhize sent condolences to the Ramjee family.
Meanwhile, Mkhize said more than 47 000 tests had been done, but pointed out this was “too few” given the size of the South African population.
He has warned that local transmissions are on the rise.
He said there was a number of townships around the country which had confirmed cases, which had government concerned.
Mkhize launched mobile units which will be used for sampling and testing
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NCID) said: “In light of the increasing incidence of Covid-19 local transmissions, it has become necessary to scale up the capacity of testing citizens across the country.
“To this end, the National Health Laboratory service has procured 60 mobile sampling and testing units to be deployed nationwide to all districts and metropolitan municipalities
The mobile units are being rolled out as apart of a mass screening and testing initiative announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this week.
“Around 10 000 field workers will be visiting homes in villages, towns and cities to screen residents for Covid-19 symptoms. People with symptoms will be referred to local clinics or mobile clinics for testing,” Ramaphosa said.