By Wilbert Mukori | “As rare flue cases increase in the country, a senior local World Health Organisation (WHO) official says there is a possibility of a new peculiar Covid-19 variant circulating in Zimbabwe.
This was said by WHO head of country Alex Gasarira during a virtual cross-border media cafe on Covid-19 and HIV new variants,” reported New Zimbabwe.

“We can’t reach a firm conclusion as to what proportion of Omicron, Delta, and other variants of interest, because the number of samples that have been processed to date is very small,” Gasasira said.

Gasarira added that although the Health Ministry and various partners were doing their best the rate of sample sequencing remained very low.

Zimbabwe is one of the countries that has failed to test, trace, track and isolate covid-19 cases as per WHO recommendation and as common-sense dictates ever since the outbreak of corona virus pandemic two years ago. It is interesting to note the country’s local WHO representative is only now acknowledging “the number of samples that have been processed to date is very small”.

In December last year, for example, at the peak of the second covid-19 wave in the region, SA was carrying out 44 074 tests per day. Zimbabwe, with ¼ of SA’s population, should have been doing 11 000 tests per day and yet was barely doing 1 500 tests per day or 10%.

Since a country’s official covid-19 cases and deaths are based on tested and confirmed cases; Zimbabwe’s official figure could well be 10% of the real figures.

As of 17 December 2021 SA had 3 276 529 cases (328 317 in the last 28 days) 90 297 deaths (707 in the last 28 days). The corresponding figures for Zimbabwe are 186 304 cases (48 464) and 4 771 deaths (60), according to the Johns Hopkins University. Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown and its health care services has all but collapsed are yet the country would seem to have defied logic!

The Zimbabwe government has bragged about the country’s low covid-19 cases and deaths; the figures are taken as read and thus proof the measure adopted by the regime to contain the pandemic have worked. The real figures, which will never be known, would tell a totally different story!

The most obvious consequence of failing to test, trace, etc. diligently is that many infected individuals who would otherwise be diagnosed and isolated are allowed to mix and thus spread the virus far and wide. And so, many more people are infected and died. Of course, the more people the virus infect the more it will mutate and thus increasing the chance of new variants emerging.

Alex Gasarira is right and the rare flu cases turn out to be a new corona virus variant then this Zanu PF regime must shoulder the blame for it because the country’s repeated failure to carry out testing, tracing, etc. as per WHO guideline have certainly contributed to this. WHO has known all along that Zimbabwe was not testing and tracking the corona virus as diligently as it should; why the devil have the organisation said nothing about it until now! – SOURCE: zimbabwelight.blogspot.com