MKHIZE - 'It has been a rough journey' 05 March 2021 Health Minister Zweli Mkhize. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has lauded South Africans and frontline workers who have helped lessen the full effects of Covid-19, as the country marks one year since the virus hit our shores. "It has been a very rough journey if one may say, we have learnt a lot, we have made mistakes and we have also achieved a lot," he said on Friday. Mkhize was speaking at Grey's Hospital in Pietermaritzburg where Premier Sihle Zikalala and Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu remembered the first ever infection, a 38-year-old Hilton man who had traveled to Italy in 2020.