BY DR MASIMBA MAVAZA|After several false reports which suggest that Zimbabwe is not taking the CoronaVirus seriously it has emerged that Zimbabwe is one of the African countries which has taken this virus most seriously. Zimbabwe has a lot of Chinese visitors and this made Zimbabwe more vigilant when it comes to the virus. There are compulsory checks at every entry point into the country. Zimbabwe battled cholera which killed over 20000 people in 2008 and 2009.
The minister of Health and Child welfare Dr Obadiah Moyo understands that “hidden” infections make containment of the coronavirus unlikely and raise fears that the rapid rising could be multiplied ten fold if it’s not declared.
“Hidden” cases – where nations hide the reality in the name tourism combined with the highly contagious nature of the disease mean there could be “vastly more cases” than previously thought, and the disease will never be eradicated should the country down play the severity of the situation.
Global health experts have warned that “hidden” infections make containment of the coronavirus unlikely and raised fears that the efforts to find treatment for it will be hampered if countries hide their statuses.
“Hidden” cases – where people with mild symptoms do not seek medical help and so remain untested and unrecorded – combined with the highly contagious nature of the disease mean there could be “vastly more cases” which are not reported. This becomes a disaster which will destroy mankind.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that containment is very unlikely,” zimbabwe should now focus largely on preparedness for infectious diseases.
Zimbabwe vehemently denied Harare was covering up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak. Zimbabwe has put the police in full string to locate a patient who escaped from quarantine. This shows that the nation is taking this virus as seriously as it deserves.
The statement of the Health Minister would be funny almost, were The country’s conspicuous bungling of the coronavirus threat not a menace to the whole region and, indeed, to the world.
There is unconfirmed report that government has has tried to address the epidemic by telling doctors to shut up about it, much as Chinese authorities in Wuhan did, disastrously, when the disease was just starting to spread last December.
Zimbabwe will not be the first country to cook the figures if it is true.
The “official figures” from Iran give the game away. At last count, 16 people have died from COVID-19, but only 95 cases had been confirmed. As Wired UK points out, that would be a death rate of about 17 percent, when the data available from China, where there are huge numbers to work with, suggests the death rate is closer to 2 percent. The statistics don’t add up. Canadian researchers cited by Wired suggest the Iran outbreak probably involves more than 18,000 people, and counting. The world could not see the need to help since the true nature of the virus is not known.
The social media was awash with the news that Zimbabwe threatened medical specialists with reprisals if any of them were to disclose information regarding the spread of coronavirus in Zimbabwe. This has been vehemently denied by the Zimbabwean authorities.
The doctors were allegedly told that, if any details did leak, they would be held responsible and would suffer the consequences. This was never substantiated and thus remains a rumour.
Despite these threats, zimbabwe has shown the seriousness of its readiness for the coronavirus outbreak, especially at port of entries. The doctors who are the first point of call in hospitals offered their assessment of the official news and figures and told him that the position of no cases of the virus published by the government do not match the reality of the situation.
If things go on like this ZIMBABWE must expect a great disaster in the coming months.
As one of these doctors. One doctor said in confidence tho “The statistics published by the government have nothing to do with reality of the situation and the number of infections is much higher than what the media reports. If things go on like this and if the government does not cooperate with the World Health Organization, we must expect a great disaster in the coming months. If we cannot come up with a framework to cooperate with the World Health Organization, our situation will become many times worse than in China.”
This doctor pointed out that, right now, Zimbabwe has only two hospitals set aside for infectious diseases these are Wilkins and Beatrice infectious hospitals. number of people in Harare have been quarantined and the government’s attempts to keep the reality of the situation a secret is a “crime” in the legal sense of the word. It is diabolic and satanic.
“Refusing to divulge real information to Zimbabweans and to the international community is officially a crime because it endangers the lives of people not only in Zimbabwe but in other countries as well.
We can only hope that the government is playing its honest part that is if government and honesty are found in the same sentence.
Zimbabwe stands to suffer very much if the ministry decides to play politics with the Corona virus. People must never be exposed to death because somebody has to lie for his pocket.
The comfort politicians must have is that Corona virus is not at all a product of incompetency. But keeping the information from the people is in-itself witch craft and diabolic.
No nation will help us because they will be under the belief that the nation has no Coronavirus.
Transparency will rule the nation forever.