Chinese medical experts visit Marondera

Marondera(New Ziana) – The visiting team of Chinese Covid-19 medical experts on Thursday visited Marondera Provincial hospital to exchange notes on how best the authorities there can best deal with the pandemic.

The team met the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Senator, Appollonia Munzverengwi, Provincial Medical Director (PMD) Simukai Zizhou and senior health officials.

Senator Munzverengwi hailed cordial China-Zimbabwe ties that date back to the latter’s years of liberation struggle, adding that Zimbabwe had a lot to learn from China which managed to contain a huge outbreak of Covid-19.

She said: “As a province and as a country, we can get an insight and learn much from the Chinese who have always been our all-weather friends. They experienced an outbreak of high proportions but managed to contain it and we can have lessons on how we can improve and appropriately respond to the pandemic.”

Zizhou, in a presentation, detailed the province’s state of preparedness in dealing with the pandemic.

“When Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, we were not spared as well. To date, we have recorded six cases as a province including four recoveries. Currently, we are closely following up on case number 5 from Murehwa and case number 6, which was admitted at Marondera Provincial Hospital two days ago.

“This same case appears not to have been contracted within Zimbabwe and was among travellers from South Africa. Our teams are carrying out community awareness campaigns, testing and isolation of infected persons,” Zizhou said.

He added that all the 15 hospitals in the province are isolation centres, and are at various stages of meeting the required standards.
Zhu Yimin, leader of the Chinese team, said every country had the problem of inward transmissions and there was need to scale up health screening at ports of entry, closely monitor inbound travellers and compulsorily quarantine them.

“The issue of transmissions that are inbound is affecting every country and there is need to ensure that people are thoroughly screened at ports of entry as well as quarantine them as per international standards,” he said.

The Chinese medical team, which arrived in the country last week, will be visiting isolation centres and meeting stakeholders responding to Covid-19 in the country.

The team is made up of experts from infectious diseases and respiratory illnesses, intensive medicine, infection control, traditional Chinese medicine as well as public health and nursing.

New Ziana