(FILES) In this file photo taken on June 1, 2020 a health professional works at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward where patients infected with the COVID-19 novel coronavirus are being treated (Photo by Douglas MAGNO / AFP)

A hundred students at a high school in northwestern Zimbabwe have tested positive for coronavirus, the government said Tuesday, raising fears of a new wave of the respiratory infection.

“A total of 100 pupils have tested positive for Covid-19 at… John Tallach boarding secondary school in Matabeleland North,” government spokesman Nick Mangwana said on Twitter.

He did not specify when the tests were conducted, but said the school, which has more than 600 students, “has since been sealed off, with no-one allowed in or out.”

Zimbabwe has so far recorded 8,897 cases of coronavirus, including 257 deaths, far fewer than in neighbouring South Africa, which has notched up more than 750,000 cases with 20,314 fatalities.

Closed in March under measures to limit the spread of the virus, Zimbabwean schools have been gradually re-opening since September after new cases began to decline.

AFP