COVID-19 Update for South Sudan - 7 April 2022

COVID-19 Overview

• Stable number of 7-day average daily reported number of COVID-19 cases.

• Expanded use of antigen rapid diagnostics tests (AgRDT) allows for detection of COVID-19 cases in remote areas.

Laboratory testing

• Majority of new cases from pre-travel screening (62.7%) and alerts (33.3%).
  Cases are concentrated in Juba (62.7%) and Ruweng Administrative Area (24.0%). Most cases in Ruweng come from health facilities serving the refugee camps: Hakima Yacoub PHCC (10.8% positivity rate and 4 confirmed cases in the week ending 3 April 2022),
  Pamir PHCC (19.5% positivity rate and 8 confirmed cases), and from Pariang county hospital (13.3% positivity rate and 6 confirmed cases).

• Thanks to AgRDT testing, 5 confirmed cases reported in Old Fangak (Upper Nile State) with a positivity rate of 20.5% in the week ending 3 April 2022.

• Increase in positivity rate from AgRDT to 10.2% in the week ending 3 April 2022 compared to 6.1% the preceding week

Vaccination

• Total of 615 health facilities (increase of 19 since last week) now conducting COVID-19 vaccination in 80 counties.

• Highest COVID-19 vaccination coverage reported from Northern Bahr El Ghazal State with 11% of its population fully vaccinated, followed by Western Bahr El Ghazal State with 9.5%, Central Equatoria State with 5.7% and Unity State with 5.2%.

• 144,000 doses of J&J donated by New Zealand and 806,400 doses of J&J from Portugal arrived on 5 April 2022. All doses arrived in frozen state, with an expiry date between August and October 2023.

• No shortage of vaccines and no doses at risk of expiring.