South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that the coronavirus will turn into a “national crisis” and its impact will be “huge”. His warning came after the first case of the coronavirus was detected in South Africa. The patient is a 38-year-old man who visited Italy with his wife. This brings to 27 the number of coronavirus cases reported in Africa. Algeria is worst-affected, with 17 cases, 16 of them in the same family. The World Health Organization says that only eight countries are ready to deal with the outbreak. Up until recently, most have lacked any diagnostic capability and few countries on the continent have sufficient health systems to deal with severe cases on a large scale. Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says, “Just three weeks ago, South Africa and Senegal were the only two countries on the continent that were doing the testing. But we have ramped up training very quickly … and as we speak today there are over 40 countries that have the ability to detect the virus.”