by Shongedzai Mugwagwa
The minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Obadiah Moyo, announced that Zimbabwe had not recorded any positive Covid-19 case yet, but urged people to start behaving as if the dreadful pandemic was now in the country, the Harare Post can report.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, Dr Moyo said: “So far the country has not recorded any positive Covid-19 case but I urge the people to start behaving as if we have coronavirus in the country. This will help in the case of an outbreak since it has now affected a neighbour, South Africa, which we share the border with,” he said.
Dr Moyo further hinted that he would recommend to the Cabinet that public gatherings in the country be cancelled so as to help reduce the risk of exposure.
He also said that his ministry had written to treasury requesting for permission to employ more nurses, environmental health officers and lab technicians so as to scale up their surveillance since Covid-19 cases had been reported just across the border in South Africa.
He further advised the auditorium that they had received cases of two travellers from Shangai and London who are now in quarantine at the country’s biggest designate hospital dealing with Covid-19 related issues.
“We have two people in isolation at Wilkins Hospital who travelled from Shangai and London. They were quarantined after showing signs of Covid-19. We are waiting for the lab results and only after that will we be able to advise the nation of the status.
“In Bulawayo, a traveller from South Africa put herself and family into self-isolation after she was informed by South African Public Health Official that the private doctor she had visited in South Africa before travelling back to Zimbabwe had put himself into self-isolation since he had met a Covid-19 patient,” added Dr Moyo.
Apparently, information gathered by this publication revealed that, upon screening at the port of entry, the Bulawayo traveller did not match any Covid-19 symptoms but lab results are yet to be released.
Dr Moyo also revealed that Zimbabwe received a traveller from the United Kingdom on 7 March to 10 March 2020 in Victoria Falls. He said that health officials were conducting contact tracing since the traveller tested positive after leaving Zimbabwe via South Africa to the UK. Therefore, Zimbabwean authorities are tracing every business he did in the country.
Meanwhile, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is set to officially launch the Covid-19 National Preparedness and Response this Thursday.
Coronavirus was declared a pandemic virus by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after its tentacles had reached almost all the corners of the world.
Zimbabwe’s neighbouring country, South Africa, today reported its 62nd case of Covid-19 in the Limpopo province.
