Mat South Schools New Hotspots For COVID-19

A scaled-up vaccination drive is being planned for all schools following COVID-19 cases in learning institutions. Graphic by The Citizen Bulletin

BY LIZWE SEBATHA | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | APR 30, 2021

In the past few weeks, schools in Matabeleland recorded high numbers of students infected with COVID-19. The reluctance to vaccinate even among health workers is not helping matters.

MATABELELAND SOUTH (The Citizen Bulletin) — Matabeleland South’s COVID-19 vaccination drive has been dogged by a plethora of hurdles that include a critical shortage of vaccines and general resistance by the public, mostly frontline workers, at a time when an outbreak of the global pandemic has hit a dozen of schools.

According to the Primary and Secondary Education ministry, Embakwe and Sacred Heart Girls High schools in the province are the worst affected.

Embakwe and Sacred Heart are situated in Mangwe and Umzingwane districts, respectively.

Situational reports by the Health and Child Care ministry indicate that both schools have been reporting new infections daily, including 101 cases recorded on Monday, April 19.

The schools had more than 519 active cases as of Wednesday, April 21, the highest among the ten provinces, against 608 cases recorded across the country at learning institutions across the country since April 8.

No deaths have been recorded in both schools.

As alarm spreads over a surge in COVID-19 cases in Matabeleland South, an investigation by The Citizen Bulletin reveals a combination of reluctance to take the COVID-19 jab, shortages of the vaccine and logistical challenges to ensure wide coverage in the vaccination drive is cited among the reasons for the outbreak.

“We had limited doses of the vaccines targeting only frontline workers like health workers; but despite that, the uptake has been very low,” Matabeleland South provincial chairperson of the Ad-Hoc Inter-Ministerial Taskforce on COVID-19, the minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Mangaliso Ndlovu revealed.

As of April 1, Matabeleland South had received 11 000 doses on February 19.

“However, the province has since received 20 000 doses with more expected ahead of the rollout of a mass vaccination drive in the border towns of Beitbridge and Plumtree where we have two major land borders,” Ndlovu added.

The Health and Child Care ministry launched the mass vaccination drive in the province with a population of about 700 000, as of the last 2012 census, on Thursday, April 22, targeting about 25 000 people in Plumtree and 26 000 in Beitbridge, the busiest port of entry into the country.

The government is rolling out mass vaccination at ports of entry in order to re-open economic activities. Illustration by Anaddu

Plumtree district medical officer Joe Nganono conceded that the low vaccine’s uptake in the district could be blamed for a surge in COVID-19 cases in the province.

“The uptake has been slow as only a few people have come forward to be vaccinated. I do not have consolidated figures at hand. I am aware that less than 300 health care workers from the targeted 600 have been vaccinated so far,” Nganono said, adding that approximately 60% of all confirmed cases in the district are imported cases as land borders remain open to returnees.

A recent report by the joint Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Public Works and National Housing and the Thematic Committee on Peace and Security on the assessment of COVID-19 treatment, quarantine and isolation facilities in Matabeleland South shows that unlike in 2020, returnees are no longer being quarantined for two weeks following the decommissioning of schools as quarantine centres.

Returnees are being sent home to self-isolate.

“In Plumtree, there was no quarantine centre considering that it was a border town which received a huge number of returnees.”
The report reads

“While the district had instituted seemingly robust measures to increase vigilance in communities, the security brief outlined that the porosity of the borders posed a colossal impediment in the fight against COVID-19 and illegal immigrants.”

Deputy Health Child Care minister John Mangwiro said the outbreak of COVID-19 at Embakwe and Sacred Heart were worrying.

A scaled-up vaccination drive is now being planned for all schools.

“There is a need to scale up vaccination at the affected schools and all neighbouring villagers to control the spread of COVID-19,” Mangwiro says.

“We have heard reports of logistical challenges in reaching some schools under the vaccination drive. What we want is a situation where vaccination teams go to Embakwe and other schools because we have a duty to protect our children.”

Teacher unions, however, blame the failure in implementing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for a spike in cases at Embakwe and Sacred Heart, among other schools.

“We warned the government against blindly accepting people into schools without mandatory testing. We insisted on capacitating schools to fully adhere to SOPs. The government never took heed,” argued Obert Masaraure, the president of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz).

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The SOP’s which provide for the prevention, early detection and control of COVID-19, were announced in September 2020.

“Regular testing cannot be avoided if we want to contain COVID-19 in our crowded schools. Secondly, we should capacitate our schools to adhere to SOPs fully,” Masaraure added.

Under the SOPs, sports activities are banned, hot seating is discouraged, frequent disinfection of schools is mandatory, while a maximum of 35 learners are permitted in class to maintain physical distancing.

The SOPs also indicate that teachers must be trained to become health coordinators by the Health Ministry to monitor health-related matters in learning institutions.

As The Citizen Bulletin continued its close watch of the unfolding situation, Matabeleland South Provincial Director for Epidemiology and Disease Control Andrew Philip Muza said the Embakwe and Sacred Heart outbreak had been contained.

“It was a localised outbreak which has been contained. Secondly, the confirmed cases were not severe as those affected were either asymptomatic or stable with mild to moderate symptoms,” Muza says, adding, “most of the students are back in class.”

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