VP James Wani Igga | Courtesy

The Vice President in charge of Economics Cluster, Dr. James Wani Igga, says he has tested positive for the Coronavirus disease.

He is the fifth senior government official to publicly declare his COVID-19 positive status. Others are his colleagues Hussein Abdelbagi and Dr. Riek Machar.

Some cabinet ministers—Angelina Teny the Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs, and Michael Makuei Lueth the Minister of Information, Communication, and Postal Services are also battling the disease.

“My sample was taken for testing a few days ago, and today (Saturday) it has been found positive of coronavirus,” Dr. Igga revealed on state-owned SSBC TV on Saturday.

“And so I encourage all South Sudanese to really go for testing so that we stop the spread of this coronavirus to more people.”

South Sudan’s Covid-19 taskforce has not announced test results for the last three days.

As of Wednesday, the country had recorded a total of 994 cases with 10 deaths and 6 recoveries.