About '97%' of Covid-19 patients from private sector: Mkhize

Health minister Zweli Mkhize is worried about what would happen if the coronavirus started spreading through SA's vulnerable communities.

So far, the virus has mostly hit those who are middle-class citizens who can afford private health care.

“At least 97% of the patients that have been diagnosed have been from the private sector. I don’t remember anyone that really came from a public hospital or public clinic,” said Mkhize.

He was speaking in Pretoria on Thursday at a dialogue hosted by the SA Medical Association, alongside medical doctors who have been dealing with patients who fear they have the illness.

Mkhize said they were considering surveillance of areas where infections could spread. There, they would have health officials embark on “drive-by tests” — spot tests of anyone showing symptoms of the virus.

“This is time to actually have a targeted surveillance where we go to areas where we think there might be risk and be able to assist there,” he said.

He stressed, however, that with the flu season fast approaching, many people could possibly dismiss coronavirus symptoms as normal.

Addressing doctors, Mkhize emphasised that no doctor should be getting ill as a result of being exposed to infected patients. He urged them to exercise caution.

Using the example of two doctors, Mkhize said: “A few days ago, a doctor came from abroad. They were discussing this issue that most of these people were getting infections from Italy and so on and they said, 'Doctor so-and-so, you came from one of those countries.' And they agreed he would go into quarantine.

“He quarantined himself and then did a test. He did it and it came out positive. It was nice because everyone took an immediate precaution and we now need to check if anyone was affected.”

This however, was not the case with the other doctor who possibly spread the virus among his colleagues.

“The other one came back well — he was asymptomatic. He had a little bit of an upper respiratory tract infection and all of a sudden, he went around, he operated, he met with people and so on,” he said.

However, a short while later, he complained that the infection was “irritating me”.

“All of a sudden, he was [tested] positive,” said Mkhize.

Currently, government has around 2,000 people who have been hired as tracers who work on tracing people who have possibly been in contact with those who have tested positive for the virus.

Mkhize said the country needed to ready itself to test thousands of people per day.