While community screening is up across South Africa and more tests are being done in the public sector, concerns remain about the supply of diagnostic testing kits and personal protective gear.
While Health Minister Zweli Mkhize acknowledged there was a long way to go, he was encouraged by the increase in the number of tests. “South Africa really has not done badly. What we are happy about is that we are targeting areas where we are having problems,” he told MPs.
A News24 report says in the first week of March, when the first cases were announced, about 430 tests were done. The following week it was doubled. In the first week of April, however, it was as high as 8,200 across the private and public sector. According to the Minister, the challenge was the supply of diagnostic kits.
The Daily Maverick says another challenge is that the National Health Laboratory Service, which provides government testing at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, has been partially and temporarily closed due to COVID-19. “In the past seven days, we diagnosed at least nine COVID-19 positive staff members in our laboratory,” said an official NHLS letter dated 27 April, seen by Daily Maverick, announcing the immediate temporary shut-down of the chemical pathology and haematology laboratories until 1 May. Other pathology services will continue as normal.
On the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers and front-line staff, Mkhize said there were no shortages overall, but rather “unevenness” in supply, notes the News24 report. “We still have some stocks. The orders should cover the next six weeks.”
A team including trade unions and academics was now involved in what he described as “active management” of PPE stocks and supplies. Regarding the situation in the Eastern Cape, where health care workers raised concerns more recently, Mkhize told lawmakers the situation was now corrected: “We went into our stores and moved some (PPE) out immediately,” said the Minister. And following a ministerial visit to that province, the Eastern Cape now also has found 800 beds to quarantine people from the outbreaks in Nelson Mandela Bay.
The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says Africa's lack of access to COVID-19 tests could undermine the global fight against the virus. Writing in Nature, John Nkengasong said powerful countries were racing to acquire tests, and without its own manufacturing capacity Africa would be left behind. “No country can securely eliminate COVID-19, or its devastating economic domino effects,” if the disease becomes rampant across a continent of 1.3bn people.
“For Africa to get ahead of the pandemic, we need to scale up testing fast,” said Nkengasong, according to a TimesLIVE report. The numbers are rising by more than 40% a week, and Nkengasong said they were likely to be underestimates. “Ethiopia has run about 11,000 tests; only 10 for every 100,000 people. Much-richer South Africa has run about 280 per 100,000. For Australia, the number is about 2,000; for the US, 1,560,” he said.
Forty-three countries had been trained by Africa CDC to test for the virus, but tests were not available. “The collapse of global co-operation and a failure of international solidarity have shoved Africa out of the diagnostics market,” said Nkengasong.
“With its lack of hospitals and high prevalence of conditions such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and malnutrition, Africa could see Covid-19 mortality rates higher than elsewhere, even in children. It will be higher still the more slowly we implement testing.”
Meanwhile, the Home Affairs Department has allocated R22m from its April travel and subsistence, and accommodation budgets to buy PPE for its staff, notes Business Day. The same will happen with future months' budgets should this be necessary, acting Home Affairs director-general Jackson McKay told a joint virtual meeting of Parliament's Home Affairs Portfolio Committee and the Select Committee on Security & Justice.
The PPE provided to staff at offices in each of the provinces and at the ports of entry include surgical masks, gloves and sanitiser, the latter also for use by members of the public. MPs were told that so far there has only been one case of a home affairs employee being infected with coronavirus.
This was in Vryheid, KZN, and as a precautionary measure the office was closed and a mobile unit deployed to ensure continuity of services. Home Affairs offices have not been closed during the lockdown but the only services offered are the registration of deaths, replacement of birth certificates and the issuance of temporary IDs, which are necessary for many people to access the grants the government is to make available to the unemployed. Where documents such as asylum permits or visas have expired during the period of the lockdown, they have automatically been extended until 1 July.
[link url="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-04-27-with-screening-and-testing-up-more-covid-19-positive-cases-but-average-1-9-mortality-rate-remains-zweli-mkhize/"]Full Daily Maverick report[/link]
[link url="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/coronavirus-all-the-latest-news-about-covid-19-in-south-africa-and-the-world-20200312"]Full News24 report[/link]
[link url="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-04-29-leave-african-covid-19-testing-behind-at-your-peril-health-chief-warns-world/"]Full TimesLIVE report[/link]
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