Govt committed to equipping of isolation, medical centres

Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter
THE Government is committed to the equipping of isolation and medical centres as they up the fight against the spread of the Covid-19.

The Government recently released an initial $7 million towards Bulawayo’s Ekusileni Hospital which is set to be turned into a national Covid-19 isolation centre, further committing to release the required $72 million which would be released in tranches.

Speaking on the sidelines of a risk communication information dissemination activity in Lupane, Matabeleland North provice yesterday, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Mr Nick Mangwana said the Government was working round the clock to ensure the equipping of the isolation centres and medical facilities to handle Covid-19 cases. He said it was fortunate that the country had thus far recorded mild cases that do not require ventilated hospitalisation.

“We are working hard to ensure that we have enough and fully equipped isolation centres and medical facilities in the country to cater for the eventuality that somebody gets the virus and is in need of these facilities.

“We are lucky that so far most of the people who have tested positive for CovidD-19 are actually getting mild symptoms than the critical and severe cases hence we have time to work on our facilities,” said Mr Mangwana.

He further emphasised that because the virus had no cure there was a need to effectively address the preventative measures and ensure that those who test positive do not spread it.

“As a Government we believe that the best approach is to actually ensure that people do not get the virus, so preventative measures are better than treatment measures because as you know there is no cure to this and all we are treating are the symptoms,” said the Permanent Secretary.

Meanwhile, Mr Mangwana called on communities to realise their importance in maintaining community health best practices. He said the Government has noted a number of people escaping from quarantine centres and border jumpers who avoid being quarantined exposing communities to the pandemic.

“As you know most of the positive cases that have been recorded in the country are imported cases therefore, we need to protect our communities. We are each other’s keepers, we are our neighbours’ keepers because of that if somebody escapes from a quarantine centre or avoids being detained, the community has a responsibility of alerting these authorities mainly as a means of protecting themselves from the pandemic,” said Mr Mangwana.

Mr Mangwana said the risk communication sub-committee on Covid-19 was an integral part in the fight against the spread of the pandemic hence he had visited the Matabeleland North provincial capital to have an appreciation on their operations. During the exercise, the Permanent Secretary joined the district risk communication sub-committee going around Lupane Town distributing Information Education and Communication materials and further educating the public about the pandemic.