Somaliland: Minister tests positive for COVID-19

GAROWE, Somalia

Suleiman Ali, information minister of Somaliland – a breakaway region of African Somalia – tested positive for the COVID-19 on Tuesday.

"I have tested positive for the coronavirus after I and other ministries went to a testing lab in the city Las Anod, Kore, said in a news conference.

The minister said that while he is feeling healthy, he has put himself in quarantine.

He said over the past few weeks, the region is reporting a rising number of pandemic infections, fearing the outbreak of the second wave in Somaliland.

In April, Khalif Mumin, justice minister of Hirshabelle province died of coronavirus in a hospital in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia.

A self-declared state, Somaliland lies in northwestern Somalia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden.

According to the US-based Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center Somalia has so far reported 3,389 infections with 98 deaths. As many as 2,791 have also recovered.