Free roaming covid-19 healthcare worker exposes Bulawayo to coronavirus

Bulawayo is turning into Zimbabwe’s coronavirus danger zone following revelations of new infections and carelessness by care workers looking after vulnerable people in the city. The country’s covid-19 cases has risen to 23 after five more people tested positive in Bulawayo out of 23 samples taken from the National TB Reference Laboratory at Mpilo Central Hospital.

All five Bulawayo cases were due to local transmission.

Bulawayo now has 10 confirmed cases, the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe.

To date Zimbabwe has three deaths from the deadly global pandemic, which has so far claimed more than 130 000 lives globally and left more than 2 million infected. 

In a statement, the Secretary of Health and Child Care Dr Agnes Mahomva said case number 18 reported on Tuesday involves a 44-year-old male resident of Harare who was part of the Zimbabweans who returned from the United Kingdom on Monday. 

Upon arrival, he had no signs or symptoms suggestive of Covid-19 and therefore put on mandatory quarantine at one of the designated quarantine centres.

Meanwhile, a physiotherapist who tested positive for Covid-19 violated self-isolation measures by roaming around the city, exposing residents to the deadly pandemic, a development that has seen authorities roping in the security services to ensure compliance.

Patient Number 15, who initially told the Bulawayo Rapid Response Team that she was a nurse, is a physiotherapist at a local hospital, it has emerged.

On Monday, the health worker tested positive for Covid-19 and was told to self-isolate at home as her condition is mild.

It is alleged that instead of self-quarantining at her home, the patient was spotted at Bradfield Shopping Centre by residents and there are times when surveillance teams could not find her at home.

The surveillance teams are yet to establish which other places she visited.

Her alleged behaviour exposed Bulawayo residents to Covid-19 which has claimed three people in the country and more than 115 000 globally.

state media