BY MOSES MATENGA
THE government last night confirmed that a traveller from China had been isolated and was being tested for coronavirus (Covid-19) after being flagged by authorities, a second such case in Zimbabwe.
Details on the matter were still sketchy last night, but the Information ministry confirmed in a statement that tests on the said traveller were being conducted. Authorities did not disclose the traveller’s nationality.
“Government would like to inform the public that today, a traveller from Hunan province in China was flagged up as needing assessment for coronavirus. Full World Health Organisation protocols were observed. The traveller has now been taken to designated isolation facilities, where the tests are being conducted,” it said.
Information ministry secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana and Health minister Obadiah Moyo were not picking calls last night.
Moyo did also not respond to questions sent to him.
But Harare City health director Prosper Chonzi confirmed that the traveller had been taken in at Wilkins Hospital, but said it was just a precautionary measure as that person had no symptoms of the virus.
“The traveller is now at Wilkins, so we are just trying to dispel suspicions. That person is not coming from Hubei (where the virus originated), but a different place and they have no symptoms, but we are just following what has to be done,” he said.
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Recently, a 27-year-old Harare woman suspected to have contracted Covid-19 after she visited Wuhan, China, was readmitted at the Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital, raising fears authorities could have prematurely discharged her.
Authorities said the woman needed to see a psychiatrist, hence her readmission into the council-run facility.
Officials at Parirenyatwa Hospital confirmed the patient was readmitted at Wilkins Hospitals for re-quarantining as well as evaluation and treatment.
The virus has killed more than 3 000 people with fears abound that it will become a global pandemic as new infections have been recorded in the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, among others and well as in African countries — Nigeria, Algeria and Egypt.
Zimbabwe’s doors remain open to travellers coming from the affected countries, raising fears of an outbreak in a country whose health delivery sector is on its knees.
