Country Report on Eswatini

Return to CoronaNet

Laurent Frick (University of Innsbruck)
2020-04-29

Country Report: Eswatini

Eswatini is a small country with about 1.2 million inhabitants. The government is an absolute monarchy, which means that the present king, Mswati III, is the chief of the state and every policy passed by the parliamentary must be signed by him.

All regulations in response to coronavirus-pandemic are implemented on the national level. At the beginning of March, Eswatini’s national government reported the first person diagnosed with COVID-19. This case was followed by a declaration of national emergency on March 17th introducing the first regulations to prevent spreading the virus in the country. The first legal step was an introduction of social distancing and travel restrictions. On March 24th, the national government announced a partial lockdown for the whole country. On the 16th of April 2020, there were 17 confirmed cases of positive tested people, and 1 person was announced to have died because of COVID-19. The national government of Eswatini is mostly following the worldwide standard procedures in response to coronavirus-pandemic. The database for a scientific research on Eswatini’s policies combating the coronavirus-pandemic is quite narrow because local media are only quoting the official press statements of the national government. Beside the national government, there are no other official authorities who enforce policies in response to coronavirus-pandemic.