THE late broadcaster Zororo Makamba (30) who on Monday succumbed to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) will be buried Tuesday at his family farm at Blue- Ridge, Mashonaland East province.
He became the first casualty from the two reported cases in Zimbabwe.
Zororo is the last son of business mogul and career journalist James Makamba.
Family sources confirmed the development.
“Burial proceedings are currently underway as I speak to you.
“It’s sad and we areas a family, we are not happy with the way he (Zororo) was treated at Wilkins Hospital,” said our source from within the family.
According to his older brother and family spokesperson Tawanda, Zororo stayed in New York for 20 days before returning home with a slight flu.
“He was in New York for 20 days and when he came back he had a slight flue, a cold.
“He then went to his general practitioner and they checked him for coronavirus symptoms and they said he didn’t have them at the time.
“He was just told that he had a cough and a flue because in New York it’s cold and here it’s hot, so they then treated him for flue and he came back home,” Tawanda told a local daily.
“He added:
“On Friday last week he started developing a fever and his doctor recommended that he had to be admitted. This is because Zororo had a tumour removed from just under his left lung last year in November and he was under an 18-month recovery time-frame.
His immune system was already compromised, so the doctor was very keen that he gets into the hospital and receives proper medication to help him get over the flue and fever.
He was further advised to go to Wilkins Hospital to test for the coronavirus. He arrived at Wilkins Hospital by 10 am and samples were collected from him and we were told that the results would be in after 6 hours.
After 6 hours there were no results and his general practitioner called to find out why the results had not been availed yet. The hospitals officials then told the GPA that they had not run the tests yet they were waiting for samples from provincial hospitals to run them all at once.
The doctor got frustrated and started questioning why they had not run the tests given that Zororo’s condition was deteriorating. After some time they then decided to run the test and in the meantime we took him home and he needed oxygen.
His GPA phoned around and an ambulance came home to deliver the oxygen and then we got the positive results for coronavirus at about 1:30 or 2:00am the following day.
They told us that now that they had confirmed that he had the virus he had to be taken to the Wilkins Hospital for treatment.”
The talented and eloquent broadcaster was the last born in a family of four, comprising of older sister Kusi, the late Chiedza and Tawanda.
Zororo cut his teeth in the media industry at ZiFM Stereo, where he hosted several current affairs programs.
He made a quick jump to television and was the host and executive producer of Tonight with Zororo an award winning talk show which aired on MNET’s, Zambezi Magic.
Tonight with Zororo won the award for Outstanding Screen Production (Television) at the National Arts Merits Awards.
He also worked in telecoms, as the public relations executive for Telecel Zimbabwe, a company where his father has stake.
He also worked as a news and broadcasting assistant at United Talent Agency in New York.
At the time of his death, he was the director and co-founder of Eleven Dogs Incorporation, a digital media and broadcasting company.
He was also the host and executive producer of Point of View with Zororo Makamba; a weekly web based political opinion show.