More than 20 Afghan presidential palace staff test positive for coronavirus

More than 20 officials working at Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s palace have tested positive for coronavirus, government sources told Reuters on Saturday.

This prompted Ghani, 70, to limit most of his contact with staff to digital communication, the sources added.

The Afghani leader himself has not officially been tested for the virus.

“A contaminated document was sent to an office inside the palace from another government department and that’s how the employees were infected,” a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“Some of the employees were still working in their offices when the results came out, and we had to quarantine them and their families, but the numbers could be higher,” the official said.

To date, Afghanistan has reported more than 900 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.