Zimbabwe extends COVID-19 lockdown by two weeks

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Sunday extended by two weeks a lockdown imposed on March 30 to curb the spread of COVID-19 which has killed three in the country.

"Government has decided to extend with immediate effect the lockdown by a further 14 days," Mnangagwa told journalists at State House in the capital.

"The country is yet to meet the conditions for lifting the lockdown announced by the World Health Organization (WHO)." The WHO stipulated that infections should be declining and there should be adequate and well-equipped treatment and quarantining facilities before measures should be relaxed.

The southern African country has so far recorded 25 cases of the respiratory disease including three fatalities.

Even before the virus, Zimababwe was already battling with an ailing health system suffering from mass shortages of medicines and equipment, and strikes by doctors and nurses.

The government has been taken to court by the union for healthcare workers which accuses it ..