HEALTH and Child Care Minister. Dr Obadiah Moyo has warned that returnees from foreign countries make up majority of the COVID-19 cases being recorded in Zimbabwe.
By Michael Gwarisa
Briefing a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health today, Dr Moyo said the country has of late been receiving more returnees from neighboring South Africa and Botswana.
These people who are coming from South Africa and Botswana I really want to point out very clearly that that is our source of danger. As they continue coming in, we can’t stop them because they are coming home. It’s a solution we have to find together.
“This is where we are going to get the majority of cases as was shown before we even had these deportees and returnees coming into the country. So far the highest number of positive cases is coming from is coming from amongst the returnees ad its an issue to all of us,” said Dr Moyo.
He added that government needs to work on capturing and managing the returnees so as to control the spread of infection into the communities.
Zimbabwe currently has 56 confirmed cases of Covid-19 including four deaths and 25 recoveries. Minister Moyo also blamed truck drivers of contributing to the rise in COVID-19 cases in the country. Moyo revealed that most of the COVID-19 cases in Zimbabwe are imported with official statistics showing that the country has 31 imported cases and 25 local transmissions.
“We discovered that trucks coming in from South Africa and am sure from other countries are ferrying illegal immigrants. The trucks stop just before the border and the people cross the Limpopo on foot and meet the driver on the Zimbabwean side.
“These individuals are usually illegal immigrants from Malawi staying in South Africa who will now be headed back home. When we stop them, we have to test them and some of them test positive. Because we now have testing in private sector we have to introduce the appropriate tariffs. We cannot afford to have laboratories or health care facilities charging exorbitant prices, it has to be controlled. So we are going to be issuing the appropriate tariffs for a particular test, whether it is rapid or the Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), it has to be controlled,” he said.
