Govt should avail COVID-19 contact tracing data

By Staff reporter | 13 Aug 2020 at 21:02hrs
Covid-19
THE Women's Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) has called on government to give a detailed report on contact tracing efforts regarding the country's coronavirus (Covid-19) local transmissions.

This comes as the country recorded 4 818 confirmed cases, including 1 544 recoveries and 104 deaths as at August 11.

There has been a report of cases of local transmissions rising catastrophically in recent weeks.

In a statement on Tuesday, WCoZ bemoaned the fact that the Health ministry had not embarked on a mass testing exercise saying limited community testing could make it difficult for authorities to come up with accurate Covid-19 prevalence in the country.

"We reinforce our call for an advanced test strategy which ensures community mass testing and also in the public sector. We further urge the government to give a long outstanding report on the tracing of contacts of all the local transmission cases thus far and to appropriately inform the applicable communities," reads part of the statement.

In the absence of mass community testing and public accounting for local transmission case-tracing, WCoZ said "we continue to raise queries on the appropriate reflection of the Covid-19 pandemic prevalence in Zimbabwe".

The women's group also called on the government to extend Covid-19 testing to the public sector to protect citizens from contracting the disease.

 "In order to ensure security and safeguarding of women and children, who are the most vulnerable sections of the population, there are critical measures that need to be established and implemented. This calls for accelerated safeguarding frameworks within the quarantine and isolation centres including training of staff on how to properly service different genders,"WCoZ said further.

It also expressed concern that there seemed to be a relaxation by communities in observing social distancing, particularly in the rural areas and high-density residential areas amid further reports that regardless of the curfew, certain community nightspots continue to operate illegally in connivance with enforcement officers.

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