Although Limpopo recorded its 13th Coronavirus (Covid-19) case as of today (Monday), the Department of Health is celebrating the province’s full recovery of the virus.
This is according to departmental spokesperson, Neil Shikwambana after indicating that Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba has welcomed the province’s first case of Covid-19 who has now fully recovered and subsequently tested negative. He added that the 28-year-old doctor was the first confirmed case in the province after his return from Europe. Ramathuba reportedly commended the doctor’s self-discipline because he immediately self-quarantined after his return from overseas and also self-isolated after testing positive.
After his self-isolation period, he has tested negative and he is ready to be integrated back to society, Ramathuba explained.
“This must also give hope to the community to say, if we do what is right, we can contain the spread of this disease,” she reiterated.
Shikwambana emphasized that Limpopo is now sitting at 13 laboratory confirmed Covid-19 cases including the recovered case, whom national department has already excluded from the statistics. He went on to highlight that of all the cases, Limpopo has only one case which is suspected to be a local transmission and added that further investigations are still being done to ascertain the fact.
When breaking down the cases, he outlined that Waterberg District is still leading with six cases. Three of these are of a Western Cape family that travelled to Europe and upon return self-quarantined and isolated themselves in a farm Waterburg while the other three are of a Japanese national who travelled home, and Australian national who also travelled home and a Zimbabwean national who has just recently arrived in South Africa, Shikwambana explained.
“Capricorn has so far recorded four cases including the recoveree. The other three are a 44-year-old female who travelled to London. Upon return, she did not self-quarantine although she was coming from a high risk area. However, upon confirming her test as positive, all her contacts were traced, screened and tested and none has tested positive. The other cases are of another 44-year-old who has just recently returned from a cruise ship in the Portuguese Island and a 54-year-old male who travelled to Nigeria,” he explained.
It was further learnt that Vhembe has recorded two cases, that of a 54-year-old female who travelled to the United States of America and a 45-year-old female with no travel history (suspected local transmission).
According to Shikwambana, Mopani has recorded a single case. This is the case of a 30-year-old who was tested in Gauteng and didn’t self-quarantine but instead came back to Limpopo, he emphasised and added that the person in question has since been arrested and taken to an isolation site at the Modimolle MDR TB Hospital.
He reiterated that the tracer team is busy tracing his contact in order to ensure that they are screened and tested.
It was further reported that Sekhukhune remains the only district in the province with no confirmed cases.
Ramathuba reportedly said the lockdown was the hope of the country to arrest the spread of the virus: “Our people must adhere to the rules of this lockdown because this is the only way we can be able to contain the spread of the virus. We are already recording deaths in other provinces and that must knock sense to many of us to say if we are not vigilant enough by doing what is right, soon we will be seeing deaths in our doorstep,” Ramathuba said.
She also welcomed the decision by President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare Protea Hotel Ranch Resort a green zone yesterday.
Story: Endy Senyatsi
