Zimpapers Logo

Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Reporter
In an effort to reverse current upward trend of Covid-19 transmissions, the country will next week embark on massive community testing targeting to reach at least 100 000 people in the coming few weeks.

The idea, according to officials is to identify, trace and isolate all suspected cases.

In an interview yesterday, Harare City Council director for health services, Dr Prosper Chonzi said under the arrangement, Harare targets to run about 30 000 tests.

He said preparations for the exercise, which will take place at every community clinic administered by the local authority were at an advanced stage.

Dr Chonzi said they are currently setting up tents at clinics dotted across the city from which interested individuals would be presenting for testing.

“We are intensifying community testing for Covid- 19 and at the moment our staff are busy pitching up tents to commence the process,” said Dr Chonzi.

He said the process will start off with rapid diagnostic testing (RDT), from which those positive will be tested again using the definitive method known as Polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

“We are doing this so that we know the extent of local transmissions and categorise them. We are expecting to run about 30 000 test in the coming weeks and we are doing this with support from Higher Life Foundation and Mars,” said Dr Chonzi.

He said the partners will be availing test kits for RDT as well as for PCR.

Dr Chonzi said the arrangement will also see a number of health workers who had not yet received training undergoing training for Covid-19 testing.

He said this process will assist the city in understanding the burden of the virus in Harare for better response.

Commenting on the rising number of people confirmed positive through post mortem, Dr Chonzi said it could mean that the country was not testing enough, hence missing these patients before they pass on or the patients themselves are not presenting for testing despite them having symptoms.

He said this makes mass community testing such as the one set to beginning in a few days necessary and important.

On the other hand, Dr Chonzi threw his weight behind total lockdown to allow the country time to re-strategise against its national response.

“Looking at this exponential rise in cases, looking at the number of deaths that are also going up and looking at the weaknesses in our health system, we need to look at issues of lockdown again for at least a week or two of complete lockdown so that we can get on top of the situation.

“This might give us an opportunity to re-strategise so that we do not continue to have more cases,” said Dr Chonzi who is also a public health specialist.

Cabinet this week announced tightening of lockdown restrictions and localised lockdowns in hotspots amid concerns over rising cases.

Schools opening were deferred, further opening of the economy was suspended and scaling testing in communities were adopted as part of the new measures to curb further transmission.

To date, Zimbabwe has so far conducted over 97 000 of both RDT and PCR tests from which 1 362 people were confirmed to be carrying the virus.

From those infected, 425 have since recovered.

The country has also lost 23 people to Covid-19.