South Sudan’s government has lifted its coronavirus restrictions as the number of infections continue to decline.

Vice President for service cluster and chair of the country’s national task force, Hussein Abdelbagi Akol disclosed that the decision to lift the COVID-19 partial lockdown was taken because of the low infection rate in the country.

“After a thorough consultation with stakeholders, it gives me great pleasure to announce the lifting of the COVID-19 pandemic partial lockdown in the country,” he said.

The decision to lift the COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday came as South Sudan recorded 16 new COVID-19 cases bringing the cumulative number of infections to 10,416, 10,148 recoveries, and 114 deaths.

Akol said the effectiveness of the earlier month-long partial lockdown had expired on April 4, noting that the infection rate in the country has significantly reduced as the laboratory result announced 16 positive cases for the last 24 hours.

He urged the public to strictly follow the country’s COVID-19 preventive measures and guidelines to curb the spread of the virus.

Last week, the East African nation launched the AstraZeneca vaccine and has so far vaccinated 947 out of 4,000 targeted frontline health workers.