Namibian president, wife test positive for Covid-19

President Hage Geingob and his wife tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday and are in isolation.

RUSTENBURG, May 27 (ANA) – President of Namibia Hage Geingob and his wife, Monica Geingob, have tested positive for Covid-19, the Presidency said on Thursday.

In a statement on its Facebook account, the Namibian Presidency said that they had tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Wednesday.

“The president and the first lady are in good spirits and self-isolating at their residence,” read the statement.

In December 2020, the founding president of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, was admitted to hospital after contracting Covid-19.

Local newspaper Informanté reported that several senior government officials and ministers, among them Vice-President Nangolo Mbumba, received their first Covid-19 vaccine doses last week as the country pushes forward with its vaccination programme to meet the 60% target necessary for herd immunity.

The drive is also aimed at lowering the country’s infection rate and reducing the number of people in need of hospitalisation.

Mbuma called on Namibians to follow his example and get vaccinated, to avoid rising case numbers brought on by different variants of the virus.

At the beginning of May, Health Minister Dr Kalumbi Shangula said it was encouraging that more and more Namibians were coming forward to be vaccinated.

“The Ministry of Health and Social Services has established a total of 383 Covid-19 vaccination sites in different health districts around the country.

“Out of these, 181 are fixed, 154 are mobile and 48 are outreach points. So far, more than 20,315 persons have already been vaccinated around the country following the roll-out of the nationwide vaccination programme. This is indeed an encouraging positive public response. We call upon more Namibians to go and get vaccinated,” he said.

Shangula also said that people should not be turned away from vaccination sites and denied vaccination because they do not have national identification documents.

Namibia has recorded 53,603 cases, with 789 deaths and 49,596 recoveries, and has vaccinated 67,659 people.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher