Sickly Sekhukhune man died not know he had coronavirus until he died

The Limpopo health department on Sunday said a man who recently died in the province seemingly had no idea that he had contracted the coronavirus.

“Unfortunately he has demised and was diagnosed through postmortem results,” the health department said in a statement.

While the Limpopo province has 30 coronavirus infections, this infection and fatality became the very first to be recorded in the Sekhukhune region.

“The deceased is a 55-year-old male who worked in Cape Town as both a freelancer in the film industry and a traditional healer,” the health department said.

“Both his responsibilities and the area he was operating at made him to be a risk candidate. He is believed to have fallen ill while in Cape Town and his son chose to drive him back to the province where he arrived on the 15th of April 2020 to consult both his prophet and his traditional healer,” the department said.

It was not immediately clear how the two had been able to travel amid the coronavirus lockdown. 

“On the 20th of April 2020, when they noticed his condition was worsening , the family took him to one of the private practitioners in the area where he was declared dead on arrival after spending less than 30 minutes in the practice.”

The department said since the start of the coronavirus, it was taking swabs and checking every ‘suspicious’ fatality.

Meanwhile, tracer teams had been dispersed to disinfect the surgery where the man died and trace all the contacts of the deceased to screen and test them.

“The challenges faced by the team is poor cooperation by his son who is our only hope to trace all the contacts. The doctor and his five staff members have been tested and are now on quarantine.  The surgery has since been closed,” the department said.