Zivanai Dhewa
Government is set to establish a virtual hospital for the management of COVID-19 patients from home, this was revealed by the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa.
Speaking during the 12th Cabinet Press Briefing, Minister Mutsvangwa explained the drive behind the establishment of a virtual hospital.
“This comes from the realisation that most COVID-19 patients recover without symptoms or after experiencing mild ones, which do not require hospitalisation.
“Government will establish a provisional figure of Ten Thousand (10 000) to twenty thousand (20 000) home-based beds. A network of health staff will carry out protocol-based monitoring and management of the cases. The equipment support for this programme is as follows, Rechargeable oxygen concentrators; Finger pulse or saturation monitors; Non-contact thermometers; Blood glucose testing machines and Blood pressure machines,” she said.
She further expounded the whole process of how the virtual hospital was going to operate and said, “The equipment will be deployed to the admitted patients and returned when the patient gets discharged. The establishment of the Virtual Hospital will therefore alleviate the pressure on hospitals.”
This will see a major decongestion of COVID-19 hospitals and better management of patients.
Meanwhile, in line with its thrust as articulated in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), of improving access to essential medicines, Government has approved the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Strategy in Zimbabwe (2021-2025), which will see local pharmaceutical companies being capacitated to produce medicines locally.
“The objectives of the strategy include the following: to increase the market share of local pharmaceutical products from the current 12% to 35% by 2025; to increase local production of essential medicines from US$31.5 million to US$150 million by 2025; to increase local production of essential medicines from 30% to 60% by 2025; and to improve exports of pharmaceutical products from 10% to 25% by 2025.
