Covid-19: Ministry trains 800 community health volunteers

Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Health Reporter
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care has trained 800 community health volunteers to help in the surveillance, reporting and testing of Covid-19 which has so far killed 248 Zimbabweans.

As of Wednesday, the country had recorded 8 427 Covid-19 infections and the national recovery rate stood at 94 percent.

Over the past few days Bulawayo has been recording most of the new cases and Covid-19 deaths and remains the second hardest hit province after Harare.

The ministry under the Programme for Accelerated Covid-19 Testing (PACT) trained the first 200 volunteer community workers in July this year.

Based on the success of the initial programme, 600 additional community workers were engaged to also disseminate vital Covid-19 information to the grassroots.

Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control in the Ministry Dr Portia Manangazira said the volunteer community health workers will create a linkage between the communities and the local health rapid response teams for effective Covid-19 surveillance, testing and reporting.

“As the country nudges forward in its effort to combat Covid-19, the Ministry of Health and Child Care has decided to rope in volunteer community health workers in order to disseminate health education down to villages. So, after this training, they go back to their communities and work from these communities, but they report on a weekly basis to us at national level,” said Dr Manangazira.

“We started with 200 volunteer community health workers who were deployed in July 2020. So far they have done so well hence we requested for additional volunteers and the African Union was ready to sponsor this endeavour.”

Dr Manangazira said she was confident the country was doing well in handling the rebounding of the viral disease given reports of the second wave of Covid-19 being experienced in other countries.

“As a country, we are bracing up for a potential second wave of Covid-19 and we would like that to be as manageable as possible,” she said. — @thamamoe