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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter

Vice President Kembo Mohadi yesterday toured Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital and expressed satisfaction with renovation works at the institution following its designation as a Covid-19 isolation and treatment centre.

The Vice President, who chairs the inter-ministerial ad-hoc committee on Covid-19, was accompanied by his deputy and Minister of Defence and War Veterans’ Affairs, Oppah Kashiri-Muchinguri and Health and Child Care Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo.

The hospital is being renovated with the assistance of the Chinese business community and other local businesses.

“You will recall that this is a (Harare City) Council facility and we have since designated it through a Statutory Instrument under the Civil Protection Unit to be taken over by Government, that’s why we are doing a lot, but I am happy about what is taking place and they tell me that by mid-next week everything will be completed,” said VP Mohadi.

“I am happy about the progress.”

VP Mohadi said the rate of testing for Covid-19 infections would soon be ramped up after the country took delivery of rapid test kits and the decentralisation of the process.

“We have also received the rapid testing kits, so we hope we will be doing that (increased testing), but my view is we need to spread out, we need to go to the provinces and the provinces need to go to the districts so that we capture a big sample,” he said.

“We sample enough people so that when we say this is the number of people that we think are infected we have an accurate figure.

“So, most of the members of the ad-hoc committee are out in the provinces and are coming back today (yesterday) and we have a meeting tomorrow (today) where they will be reporting what is obtaining on the ground.”