South Sudan — COVID-19 Mobility Update Week 6 (27 April - 3 May 2020)
Contact
DTM South Sudan, SouthSudanDTM@iom.int
Language
English
Location
South Sudan
Period Covered
Apr 27 2020
May 03 2020
Activity
- Other
As of 3 May 2020, the number of confirmed cases in South Sudan saw a drastic increase to 49 from six cases in the previous week. The highest increase took place on 28 April 2020 with 28 new cases resulting from a release of 139 test results of persons who had been in contact with the fifth case. The incident led to an announcement of more stringent measures including an earlier curfew, closure of tea stalls, forced quarantine and punitive measures for those who breach COVID-19 related restrictions. On 29 April 10 pastors were briefly detained for breaching the ban on large gatherings.
Government security forces imposed a further lockdown at Malakal PoC site on 27 April 2020 immobilising residents and service providers for two days. As of 30 April, movements picked up again albeit at a reduced rate as before the lockdown since restrictions imposed on 6 April 2020. It should be noted that WHO tested 20 samples from the PoC site, which were negative.
Risk communication efforts are increasing on a sub-national level where partners are conducting sensitization and awareness campaigns as well as trainings for medical staff. Partners are also doubling food distributions in many locations to reduce the frequency of congregations. COVID-19 related supplies including viral transport media and PPE have been prepositioned in 20 locations across South Sudan to enable testing in Juba for these areas.
DTM gathered data on seven displacement sites and 47 transport points including airports, border crossing points and internal transportation hubs. Temperature screening1 was conducted at 7 assessed transport points (15%) while additional hand-washing stations were installed at 17 (36%). At a quarter of assessed points movement of persons continued without disruptions (26%) and at a third, most movement has diverted to nearby alternative routes (34%). The movement of cargo continued uninterrupted at three-quarters of assessed points (74%). For more information on the status of transport points, please consult page 3 for a summary or access the dataset.