The family of retired Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) Commander, and Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement, Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri, said it suspected that he could have succumbed to food poisoning, not COVID-19, as was widely reported.
Family spokesperson Benjamin Chikerema (Junior) said that the doctors who initially attended to him also suspected food poisoning. He said:
We have noted social media reports of COVID-19 suspicions. Although we cannot rule that out, what we know for now is that he started vomiting severely and was attended to by doctors who suspected food poisoning.
He started vomiting and was taken to the doctors who said they suspected he had eaten poisoned food. Around 3 am, he started having difficulties breathing and died when he was being taken to a Chinese facility.
Meanwhile, President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday revealed that Minister Shiri died of COVID-19.
He said this while addressing mourners at the late Minister’s Borrowdale home in Harare today.