- Zim ready for fight against CoronaVirus
- Minister says healthcare institutions to be empowered
- Entry points across country now under súrveillance
HEALTH and Child Care minister Obadiah Moyo on Monday said there is need for health institutions in Zimbabwe to be fully prepared for the CoronaVirus which lately has caused more than a hundred deaths in China.
In an interview yesterday at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, the minister said it would be difficult for the country to handle the virus if it hit now due to lapses in Zimbabwe’s healthcare system.
Moyo emphasised the need for local clinics to be equipped with the right tools to be able to assist if the need arose.
“With a great deal of difficulty under our current operating environment, we need all health institutions to be fully functional,” he said.
Moyo said there was close monitoring at all entry points in Zimbabwe so that the virus is quickly detected.
“Our surveillance systems have been activated countrywide but with special focus on the main ports of entry; RGMI, Joshua Nkomo and Victoria Falls airports, including Beitbridge Border Post,” Moyo said.
Last week, a health official said the ministry would implement World Health Organisation guidelines to detect and combat the CoronaVirus wherever it was found in the country.
He also said health officials would be trained to handle infected persons.
Meanwhile, at a meeting to discuss epidemic-prone diseases on Friday,the director of Epidemiology, Portia Manangazira, said 22 people onboard a flight from Wuhan, China, where the epidemic was first detected, were closely being monitored for the virus, with the majority of them Zimbabweans.
“We have to make sure that whoever is coming in from Wuhan is monitored for infection so we know what to do” Manangazira said.
Meanwhile, the virus can be contracted through contact with infected persons’ droplets such as from sneezing, coughing and eating half-cooked meat.
CoronaVirus can lead to serious infection like bronchitis and pneumonia, especially for the younger and older generations whose immune systems would be weak
