THE Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) Executive Director, Mr Itai Rusike has warned that the relaxation of international and regional travel restrictions will likely lead to uncontrolled importation of new COVID-10 variants especially during the forthcoming festive season.
By Patricia Mashiri
His call comes at the back of emerging highly virulent coronavirus variants in other parts of the world that have seen countries such as China closing schools and travel while Russia and United Kingdom (UK) have also started wittiness a massive surge in cases and deaths.
Speaking to HealthTimes, Mr Rusike said government needs to be on alert as a lot of Zimbabweans and tourists based in the United Kingdom (UK) are expected to be visiting the country during the holiday season.
We are now seeing a very worrying picture of the impact of the Covid-19 Delta Variant in the UK where they are now experiencing an upsurge in new Covid-19 cases, hospitalization and deaths. The last few weeks have seen the UK experiencing a significant rise in new Covid-19 cases with the number of daily deaths also rising due to the new Delta Plus Variant.
“The government of Zimbabwe should strengthen it’s monitoring and surveillance systems at our airports and land boarders by making sure that all the people arriving from outside the country are thoroughly screened for Covid-19 in order to avoid important the Delta Plus Variant that may be difficult to contain and may also overwhelm our health delivery services, Mr Rusike said.
He added that there was need to continue encouraging the public to get vaccinated in their numbers.
“We still need a lot of people to get vaccinated and adhering to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended Covid-19 guidelines and protocols amongst through a sustained health education and awareness campaigns with informed community participation and ownership,” he said.
Meanwhile, there has been a growing trend and complacency amongst members of the public of late.
