Coronavirus in SA takes critical turn

SA has ramped up efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak after six new cases were reported in three provinces, including the Western Cape, for the first time.    

A 57-year-old man diagnosed with the virus and battling renal disease was in critical condition at a Gauteng hospital on Wednesday night, the Gauteng health department said only hours after health minister Zweli Mkhize confirmed the new cases.

This brings to 13 the number of confirmed cases in SA at the time of going to print.

Eastern Cape health MEC Sindiswa Gomba said that managing the entry of people passing through the points of entry to the province would be a crucial part of a provincial containment or slowdown of infections strategy.

Because of the large-scale migration of people in and out of the province to seek work, she said, “We have to be very careful of our areas of entry into the Eastern Cape. What if a person may speed through all the entrances of this country and we find this person in Mqanduli, how ready are we?”

Mkhize said four of those infected were in Gauteng, one in KwaZulu-Natal and one from the Western Cape.

The Western Cape’s first case is in self-isolation, two days after arriving in Cape Town after a visit to Europe. So far 80 people in the Western Cape have been tested for the virus.

The government announcements came as the aircraft deployed to repatriate 122 South Africans from the epicentre of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, was expected to land in that city overnight.

On board the flight were the flight crew from the aircraft company and 15 officials from the departments of health and defence. The flight stopped to refuel in the Philippines and stock up on provisions for the return journey to SA.

But a young professional East London couple, who have been hankering to come home for weeks and who have described the deterioration of life in Wuhan, simply replied to the Dispatch on Wednesday: “No communication [from government] yet. We are still at our apartments.”

In their previous communication last week, the couple wrote: “We have not been told anything yet. We asked and they said when it is finalised they will tell us. All we have been told is to fill in a questionnaire and give them all our details.”

The return flight from Wuhan is expected to land in SA on Friday morning.

In the Eastern Cape, a briefing to discuss how the outbreak will be handled by key medical personnel was held in East London on Wednesday.  

Here it was revealed that the Eastern Cape’s programme to slow down or contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus will be based on tracking and treatment methods used in the fight against tuberculosis (TB).

Health superintendent-general Thobile Mbengashe said: “We are going to try to identify people early, follow everyone who is suspect and has been diagnosed, and trace those individuals to their communities.

“When we deal with TB, this is exactly what we do. We will chase people, quarantine those where we think there is a problem, isolate people who take the test and manage those.” 

He said that only people who had been exposed to someone else carrying the virus could contract Covid-19 and establishing the social or travel history of a patient was critically important.

He said a key part of the work would be to identify and isolate clusters of those infected by the virus.

“Its transmission is based on proximity. You have to be close. It works in clusters, in families, in communities. It gives us an opportunity when we do intervention to find those clusters and try to contain it [within] the cluster as best as we can.”

He said this is what happened in Wuhan and in Lombardia, the northern region of Italy, with communities being “locked down” or placed in isolation.

“We can’t deal with this problem with fear and rumours about things that do not happen. We must meticulously follow science. China has managed it based on science. The other countries are responding to it based on science.”

The deputy director-general in charge of the district health services, Dr Litha Matiwane, said the province would follow national government protocols, which were based on a clinical diagnosis of acute respiratory infection along with a cough, sore throat, shortness of breath and fever.

But a confirmation of Covid-19 infection would only be made once this clinical diagnosis was combined with either an individual’s contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19, travel to an area where the presence of the virus has been established, or exposure to a healthcare facility where confirmed Covid-19 patients were being treated.

Mbengashe said nobody could contract the virus except from contact with a carrier.

“That is important. Many people now are going to have a lot of snotty noses and flu and everything. The question we need to be asking all of them is to establish ‘what the likelihood is that you have actually been in contact with someone who has the virus’.” — Additional reporting by BDLive