Cape Town - The Cabinet will on Sunday hold a special meeting to discuss the nation's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far seen 17 confirmed infections in the country.
Minister in the presidency Jackson Mthembu announced the special meeting as he briefed the media on Thursday at the regular fortnightly Cabinet meeting.
Mthembu said health minister Zweli Mkhize would hold a media briefing on Thursday to update South Africans on the spread of the virus and the government's response, later on Thursday.
He confirmed that the army and the police were involved in the planned repatriation of South Africans from Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, considered the initial epicentre of the outbreak of Covid-19.
Mthembu stressed that there should be no fear that those returning from China were carrying the virus.
"They are as healthy as you and me. They have not contracted the disease," he said.
"Nobody should be thinking that we are bringing people here from China who have contracted the disease to transmit the virus."
He declined to say where the returning South African would be placed under mandatory quarantine.
"I'm as blank as you are but naturally we would not like people to flock to that area, because that would not be good even for the people we are taking there."