Nokuthaba Nkomo
and Tendai Kamhungira
STAFF WRITERS

©️ DOCTORS have once again warned that authorities should forestall a health catastrophe in the country by embarking on mass testing of people and increasing its surveillance at ports of entry, in the wake of the rising incidence of coronavirus through local transmission.

Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, the doctors said the rising Covid-19 local transmissions were a red flag which demanded more testing in communities to establish the exact prevalence of the disease in the country.

This comes as many Zimbabweans are increasingly disregarding the current lockdown restrictions, following their relaxation by authorities in the interests of the economy.

It also comes as the country is facing major constraints relating to its coronavirus testing capacity at its main laboratory in Harare — amid rising infections.

The chairperson of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), Fortune Nyamande, was among those who told the Daily News yesterday that there was need to intensify testing in communities, to stop more cases of local transmission in the country.

“To address the continuing cases of local transmission, we need to scale up our testing.
“We need to go into the communities and conduct widespread tests to find where the cases are, isolate them, trace their contacts and treat them accordingly.

“For now, the numbers of diagnostic tests we have conducted are very few, leaving open the possibility of many people unknowingly being infected by the virus and transmitting it,” Nyamande said.

“This (local transmission) raises questions on whether we are doing enough. Are we also doing surveillance at our entry points?
“People with the virus may be coming in sick without showing any symptoms and not visiting our health facilities.
“At the end of the day, they end up spreading the disease in their communities,” Chonzi, who is also Harare City Council director for health, said.

“More testing is thus needed for us to understand how big our outbreak is, so that we can come up with proper interventions,” he added.

This comes as Zimbabwe has tested less than 25 000 people, from which four people have died from the 36 cases of Covid-19 reported.

Of the 36 cases that have been recorded so far, five cases were a result of local transmission, with the patients having no known travel history.

The secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association (SHDA), Aaron Musara, also blamed the rising cases of local transmissions to ”ineffective contact tracing”, as well as “deliberate lies by patients and breaches of quarantine or self-isolation rules”.

“Hostilities towards healthcare professionals have been expressed in some instances during contact tracing.
“Some people who have been diagnosed with the condition have also not adhered to the self-isolation rules.
“Even at the quarantine centres, in some instances it has reportedly taken the intervention of soldiers to stop contact between the quarantined and relatives,” Musara told the Daily News.

He also said there was need to strengthen preventive measures such as wearing face masks regularly, social distancing, washing hands and avoiding gatherings.

“The putting on of masks has helped the Chinese very well. So, there  is need for the enforcement of the putting on of masks.
“Our cases are still very few. We have a good chance against the virus if we ramp up our preventative measures,” Musara added.

However, he also expressed concerns over the “disregard for the lockdown” in high density suburbs, where he said people were behaving as if it was “business as usual”.

“Our high density areas are especially worrisome. Evening social gatherings seem even bigger than before Covid-19, as if people are covering up for the times when there will be strict policing.

“It seems many are taking time to understand that staying home is for their own good,” Musara added.

Nyamande on the other hand emphasised that a lockdown without aggressive testing, isolating and treating of cases was futile — adding that strict regulations needed to remain in areas with widespread transmission.

“Even if the lockdown is to be extended, it will not help without an increase in diagnostic PCR tests for Covid-19.
“A phased approach of removing the restrictions may be beneficial. Areas with widespread local transmission may remain in lockdowns, whilst those with no cases have the restrictions eased.

“There may also be need to maintain the mandatory quarantine of all returning residents, and restricting outbound movement of citizens for now,” Nyamande said.

This comes as Zimbabwe is in the final week of the extended lockdown, which expires this weekend.
Despite the tough regulations in place, backed by heavy law enforcements on streets, public discipline regarding the lockdown has been slipping badly.

This is evidenced by the thousands of arrests across the country that have been made over breaches of the stay-at-home order.
All this comes after President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently relaxed the Covid-19 lockdown measures, to allow more companies to re-open, after five weeks of closure to combat the spread of coronavirus in the country.

However, countries that recently relaxed or lifted their lockdowns have been hit by fresh cases of Covid-19 infections.
Recently, Nigeria witnessed a dramatic surge in its coronavirus infections when 245 people contracted the deadly disease hours after the country eased its stay-at-home measures.

In Ghana, cases of new infections also spiked by 60 percent a week after the authorities there lifted their lockdown.
Only at the weekend, Ghanaian authorities revealed that a single individual had infected 533 people with the lethal virus.

According to World Health Organisation, the coronavirus comes from a large family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases.

Its symptoms include pneumonia, high fever, flu, shortness of breath and diarrhoea — and the precautions that have to be taken include covering your mouth when coughing and sneezing, and continuously washing one’s hands.