LIMPOPO – She said that to date, Limpopo has registered 30 cases of Covid-19, 24 recoveries, two deaths and four active cases.
Among the latest two cases recorded, was a 52 year-old male teacher from Greater Giyani in the Mopani District, detected through the massive screening and testing campaign. He has been admitted in a private facility where he is in isolation and his condition is stable.
The second death was the province’s first case in the Sekhukhune region. The man was diagnosed through post mortem results.
The deceased is a 55-year-old male who worked in Cape Town as a freelancer in the film industry but also practised as a traditional healer.
He is believed to have fallen ill while in Cape Town and his son drove him back to Limpopo where he arrived on 15 April to consult both his prophet and another traditional healer.
His condition worsened and on 20 April the family took him to a private practitioner in the area where he was declared dead on arrival after spending less than 30 minutes at the practice.
The clinician took a swab and the results came back positive.
“Our tracer teams have since been on the ground visiting the surgery to disinfect it and also tracing all the contacts of the deceased to screen and test them. The team was faced with poor cooperation by the deceased’s son. The doctor and his five staff members have been tested and are now in quarantine. The surgery has since been closed,” Ramathuba said.
She said the department has seen undesirable activities playing out in some communities following the announcement of cases.
“In Lebowakgomo in particular, communities have been mobilising and political parties instigated communities to rise against an elderly woman who has tested positive following the death of her husband. We condemn such acts with the contempt it deserves. We call upon communities to support and not to stigmatise people who test positive for Covid-19. We also call on communities to work with our tracer teams in order to trace all contacts of people who test positive without stigmatising them. Through this, we will beat the scourge of this pandemic together.”
Ramathuba said following the launch of the Provincial Mass Household Screening programme on 14 April, 9 856 Community Health Care Workers were deployed to carry out screenings.
“By Friday, 24 April, 800 119 households have been visited and 2 781 765 people were screened. This constitutes over 50% of the entire population of the province. Of this, 2 783 people were referred for testing and 1 770 were tested. Out of the 1 770 people who were tested as per this programme, one person tested positive.”
She said there are more communities which are yet to be reached through the process of screening. “We have given an extension of four days next week for our workers to reach out to those.”
She concluded by urging community members to continue observing the rules of the lockdown as declared by the president and to continue taking precautionary measures.
She said inter-provincial transmission remains Limpopo’s problem and with factories going to open soon at 50% operations, many high-risk people will be travelling across provinces. She called upon companies to quarantine their employees for 14 days before allowing them to start working.
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